HIGHLIGHTS: Aliko Dangote - Founder and CEO of the Dangote Group

0:00Hi everybody, tune in to this short version of the podcast, which we do every Friday. For the long version, tune in on Wednesdays. Hi everybody, I'm Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of the Norwegian Soren Wealth Fund, and today I have a real pleasure sitting down with Aliko Dangote. Aliko is the founder and the CEO of the Dangote Group, Africa's largest industrial conglomerate. Nearly 50 years ago, he started with a small trading firm in Nigeria, and today his empire stretches across the continent. He has built what many said was impossible, a large-scale African industry from scratch. Warm welcome. Thank you very much, Nicola.

0:38It's a pleasure having you. It's great to be here. How did it all start? Well, I started as a trading company in 1978. And what kind of things did you trade? Cement. At that time, I started first with cement. I was getting four or five trucks and trading them there in Lagos. and then later on I got into fish, into rice, into sugar and, you know, we started, we continued to expand. My first import of sugar was actually in 1980, you know, and everything was under import license, so I got a license. So then you decide, I'll make a refinery. I decided that I'm going to make a refinery. And let's make the biggest?

1:25The biggest ever. In the world? In the world, ever. 50 % more than the biggest. $20 billion. $20 billion of investment. Tell me about it. So we started with that. We launched the project in 2013. We have had issues of the land for five years. One land, three and a half years. The other land, one and a half years. That we have not been able to get even access to it. All this has been blocked by what you call the mafia in oil business to make sure that we don't come and address these issues. But we were not deterred at all. We were actually focused. We knew what we were doing. And, Nicola, when we started, right, the exchange rate of NERA was 156.

2:14We even got up to 1 ,900. But we still went ahead. we had to build our port because there was no port in the county that could take those heavy equipment one piece was 3 ,000 tons we have another which is the regenerator then we have another piece which is the crude distillation unit that is 2 ,700 tons so we have almost about 30 of this equipment and we build the refinery importing most of these preheaters i'll call in modular forms so you have to build a harbor you had to work the roads we have to do water water is 440 million liters of water you know which is treated water so our water department alone is more than uh let me say in hectare, in size is more than 30 hectares.

3:11How many people worked on this? 67 ,000 people worked on the building of the refinery and it took us... This is a size, that's the size of the town where I grew up. Well, you know, but I mean, that is how we had to actually now, because we are building something. And luckily, let me tell you what you don't know. Luckily for us, we didn't know what we were building. Because if you knew I was faced with the plan and the drawings all at once, right, I wouldn't have built this refinery. I would have actually chicken out. What is it that foreign investors don't understand when it comes to doing business in Africa?

3:54What they don't really understand, there's one thing that really is buffling them. that okay fine if we well what you are saying is good how come we africans are not investing in our own economies because the mistakes that we've been making in the past is that we are looking for foreign investors but foreign investors are only attracted by domestic investors so and that's what we are doing today nicola because if you look at it we're investing heavily and i mean we don't even take money out of the business so majority of companies today I can just mention a few like adnock were in a very big discussion with them and we want to have a very serious partnership in fertilizer in the oil business and in any other businesses like infrastructure people are looking at infrastructure That's why we're building the biggest, deepest port in Africa, just about 60 kilometers away from Lagos.

4:58So these are the sort of things that we're doing, which I believe now the government also themselves, they realize that, look, for me to deliver on my electorate promises, I have to work with the private sector. So that has actually given us an insurance because if the government disrupts any of our business, they will be the first ones to suffer before us. Who is helping Africa with business now? Can you just reflect a bit on China versus the US versus Europe? Honestly, you want me to be very open. Totally. Yeah, so it's China. China really have dominated business in Africa because of the absence of the others.

5:47How do you see that? Well, they are making money. They are dominating the landscape. And obviously, you know, Africans, you know, even our own governments, they don't joke with China because China, they put their balance sheet on the table. So some examples of how China has helped you. Okay, let me, some of the projects like in cement, like some of the things that we do purchase of their equipment and co, they give you a supplier's credit backed by their insurance company, which is called Sino Show. Sino Show has invested, to talk about,$1.2 trillion in supporting their companies to go abroad and sell their technology, sell their equipment and giving you a credit of four five years okay but if you are now going to now if i now go to italy for example and they're asking me to write a check of a power plant of 500 million dollars that i want to uh you know build and i have one which is also good might not be even as good as italy okay but the chinese are saying that no no just give me 20 percent the rest i will give you five years uh you know financing which one are you going to take if you are in my shoes obviously you take the chinese one because the chinese one it means that i can do more what do you think is driving you now i mean you're already the wealthiest guy in africa what is driving me is legacy actually it's not about being you know riches because i mean i don't have too much of needs you know i mean that's why i mean today okay i have i'm restricted i cannot just do the giving pledge where now i pledge all my worth to this you know in my religion islam it does not allow for that unless if the inheritors agree with you but i have given now one third of my wealth to the foundation if anything happens to me now one third will automatically go to my you know uh you know foundation but what is driving me the most is that we have a lot of needs in africa and for people like us for cooperation like us We are the ones that are supposed to provide that leadership in terms of transforming the economies of Africa.

8:25If we don't, we'll not be able to get support from anywhere. We have been waiting for long for foreign investors to come and invest and actually show what are the potentials of Africa. But today, we are the ones that will end up showing people that these are the potentials. And I personally believe that by doing so, a lot of corporations will join us in funding this massive infrastructure that will make Africa to be at the next level. What do you hope your legacy will be? My legacy will be that I'm one of the ones that actually pioneered the industrialization of Africa. That's my focus, to make sure that Africa produces what we consume.

9:17This is my main focus. And for us to keep pushing, to make sure that we have one common market. I have a group which is called the African Renaissance. and there are quite a lot, any big guy in Africa, 54 of us were in this group, which we meet physically once in a year in Rwanda, which is Kigali. And we've been supported by a lot of presidents. And I think the more they understand what we are trying to do, the more that we'll achieve. You know, because nobody can transform our continent but us, we Africans. Thank you.