Aliko Dangote | Biography, Career and Networth

Aliko Dangote is the richest man in Nigeria, Africa and the richest black man in the world, with an estimated net worth of $ 14.3 Billion. He is the chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Group, a multinational industrial conglomerate.

Bio Data

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Aliko Dangote’s Biography

Aliko Dangote was born on the 10th of April 1957 in Kano State to Mohammed Dangote and Mariya Sanusi Dantata, the daughter of Sanusi Dantata, who is the great-grandson of Alhassan Dantata, the richest person in West Africa until the time of his death in 1955.

Alhassan Dantata was a Northern Nigerian trader in kola nuts and groundnuts, and he was a distributor of European goods. He supplied large British trading companies with raw materials and also had business interests in the Gold Coast. Sanusi on his part was the director of the Nigeria branch of Shell B.P. and founder of Sanusi Dantata and sons limited, A conglomerate with subsidiaries in real estate, Farm produce Mecharndize and Transporation

Dangote began his education at the Sheikh Ali Kumasi Madrasa, followed by Capital High School, Kano. He furthered at the Government College, Birnin Kudu. He received a bachelor’s degree in business studies and administration from Al-Azhar University, Cairo.

Career

Dangote began his entrepreneurship career in 1977, by starting his own cement trading business funded by a loan from his uncle. He moved from Kano to Lagos to expand the company. In 1981, he formed the corporation that later became Dangote Group.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Dangote diversified his operation to include trading sugar, flour, fish, rice, milk and iron. After travelling to Brazil to study manufacturing in 1996, Dangote shifted the company’s focus from trading to manufacturing, believing there was an opportunity to create a local operation that would profit from meeting the basic consumer needs of Nigeria’s growing population.

Dangote began building salt and sugar refineries, flour mills and a pasta factory in 1999. A year later, he bought the Benue Cement Co. from the Nigerian government to commence the cement manufacturing firm under his conglomerate.

Today Dangote group is one of the largest conglomerates in Africa with many of its operations in Benin, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and Togo. The main publicly traded businesses — Dangote Cement, Dangote Sugar, and Nascon Allied Industries — make up about one-third of the market capitalization of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

The company with over 11,000 employees has major investments in real estate, banking, transport, textiles, oil, and gas. Its sugar refinery is the largest refinery in Africa and the third-largest in the world, producing 800,000 tonnes of sugar annually. The company’s Obajana Cement Plant is currently the largest cement facility in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Conglomerate is presently developing a $19 billion oil refinery in Lagos, Nigeria the refinery is expected to commence operations in the third quarter of 2022. 

Aliko Dangote’s Networth

Aliko Dangote is presently worth 14.4 Billion according to Forbes Magazine, According to Bloomberg, the majority of his fortune is derived from his 86% stake in publicly-traded Dangote Cement. He holds the shares in the company directly and through his conglomerate, Dangote Industries.

Dangote’s other publicly traded assets include stakes in Dangote Sugar, Nascon Allied Industries and United Bank for Africa. His stakes in the publicly traded companies are held directly and through Dangote Industries.