Dangote subsidiary Sephaku cement to start production Jan. 2014

Alhaji Aliko Dnagote

Dangote Cements 64 percent owned South African subsidiary sephaku cement is to start production at its new cement plant in early 2014, as first half profits rose to R40 million ($4 million). The group achieved revenue of R301.6 million from no revenue for the comparative period in 2012.

Commenting on the period under review, Lelau Mohuba, chief executive officer said, “I am pleased with the results indicating our initial reporting period of positive earnings and revenue as a result of the strategic acquisition of Metier.”

“The significant construction progress at our associate company Sephaku Cement’s plants has firmly positioned the company as a new entrant into the cement manufacturing industry in South Africa since 1934.I would like to commend our highly experienced operational team for attaining to date the key milestones towards starting cement production in January 2014.”

 The group attained its initial revenue of R301.6 million attributable to the consolidation of the financial results of the recently acquired Metier Mixed Concrete (Pty) Ltd (“Metier” or “the subsidiary”) for the full six-month period. Commensurately the group’s operating profit increased by R43.8 million over the last nine months to R33.8 million with the resultant EBITDA of R40.3 million compared to the R9.8 million loss for the six months ended 31 December 2012.

During the reporting period, the headline earnings per share increased from a loss of 5.69 cents for the six months ended 31 December 2012 to earnings of 2.78 cents for the six months ended 30 September 2013. The wholly owned subsidiary, Metier, achieved an EBITDA of R55.1 million and earnings before interest and taxation of R43.7 million resulting in an overall profit for the group.

The subsidiary accrued finance charges of R5 million on the acquisition debt and R4.2 million on the refinancing and expansion debt resulting in a profit after taxation of R24.5 million. Speaking earller in November when parent company Dangote Cement last reported a 28.7 per cent growth in revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2013, Group Managing Director, Devakumar Edwin, said, “Our South African venture, Sephaku Cement, is well on track to open in the early part of 2014.

These will be our first production ventures outside Nigeria as we aim to become Africa’s leading supplier of cement.” Dangote Cement is Nigeria’s leading cement producer with three plants in Nigeria and plans to expand in 13 other African countries. The group plans to build more integrated, grinding and import facilities across Africa, bringing its total capacity to over 50metric tonnes per annum (mta) by the end of 2016.

Nigerians dominate Africa Person of the year shortlist

The awards celebrate “the individual who, for better or worse, has had the most influence on events of the year gone by,” the report said.

Forbes Africa announced today it has narrowed down a shortlist, dominated by Nigerians. The awards are scheduled in Nairobi, Kenya in December.

“We want to honor the big hitters of the continent who are making a difference in people’s lives and we hope that in doing so, it will inspire others,” said Chris Bishop, managing editor of Forbes Africa magazine, in the report.

The nominees include:

1. South African mining magnate, Patrice Motsepe, who has said he plans on giving away more than half his fortune over the next five years.

2. Akinwunmi Adesina, Nigeria’s Minister of Agriculture: his vision is to make Nigeria a self-sustaining, food-producing nation and register 20 million farmers by 2015.

3. Aliko Dangote is Africa’s richest billionaire. His net worth has significantly increased on the back of his continued business success, allowing him to better the lives of millions, the report said. Dangote’s personal fortune is said to be more than $19 billion, according to Forbes.com. Most of it lies in shares of publicly traded Dangote Cement. In May, Dangote raised $4.5 billion from a consortium of Nigerian banks to invest in Nigeria’s first private oil refinery. The $9 billion refinery and petrochemical complex is expected to decrease Nigeria’s dependence on oil imports and boost Dangote’s fortune significantly.

4. Zimbabwean Strive Masiyiwa is the founder of global telecoms group, Econet Wireless. Through Capernaum Trust he educates tens of thousands of Zimbabwean orphans. An entrepreneur known for fighting corruption, he said he has been solicited for bribes by government officials, the private sector and even presidents as he built his businesses in Africa. On a social network posting that went viral last week, Strive Masiyiwa said his weapon against corruption was the word “no.”

5. Jim Ovia established Zenith Bank Group in 1990 – now West Africa’s second largest financial services provider. His focus has turned to helping grow Africa’s budding “techpreneurs.”

Bill Gates in Nigeria to end polio in 2018

• 2014 could be last year for  virus, say Gates, Dangote
• Target multi-billion fund to boost healthcare in Nigeria


A PRIVATE sector health initiative has pledged to raise billions of naira within the next three years to boost
healthcare in the country. The Private sector Health Alliance Nigeria (PHN), which was launched Tuesday in Lagos, is headed by businessman Aliko Dangote and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Bill Gates is an inventor and founder of Microsoft while Dangote is Chairman, Dangote Foundation and President, Dangote Group. At a media briefing Tuesday to announce the alliance between the two foundations, the duo said they planned to work together and raise billions of naira to reduce preventable deaths by focusing on strengthening childhood immunisation programmes, eradicating polio, ensuring that women are able to seek healthcare during pregnancy, and improving access to primary healthcare.

They gave 2018 deadline to totally eradicate polio from Nigeria after stopping transmission by the end of 2014. The group said unrest and poor quality immunisation campaigns, and not refusal of vaccines, were the major threats to the country’s efforts to eradicate the disease.

The Dangote Group also announced plans to mark its 20th anniversary in January 2014 with the setting up of a multi-billion naira endowment fund that will cater for health, education, disaster management and relief, and unemployment issues.

Gates said: “… There was a big gathering yesterday (Monday) where everybody committed themselves, including the Nigerian government, to working together to officially finish polio by 2018. That means to do that, you have to have three years with absolutely no cases. So, I am very happy to see the President and others saying if we did a good job, 2014 could be the last year for the polio virus. “Our foundation does a lot of health work. We are very interested in routine immunisation. Some of what we saw at the primary healthcare centres,  how vaccines are kept in the cold room and how the supplies are managed, are areas where we see room for improvement because the parents know that anytime they come in, their child will get the vaccines, then they come more.

“So, there is a lot to be done. So, it is exciting we are partnering Dangote Foundation for a lot of that work in Kano and we met with the governor and other people in the state and we heard about the progress they are making. So, it has been a very successful visit. I am glad to be here. I am very committed even beyond health. We are also working in agriculture, financial services and also eventually some sanitation things as well.”

Dangote said: “It is really very exciting and also a great pleasure to see Bill of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who has actually spent the last 48 hours, knowing how very busy he is going round the world. We really do appreciate having you here. He has actually done a lot in terms of even going to the Presidency to talk to them about their own counterpart-funding. So most of the time they release money, but we also have to push the government to release their own. We have had very excellent meetings with the Presidency, with the National Assembly. We met with the Speaker and all the leadership and we had an excellent meeting. We met with the minister of health and I think we Nigerians are really grateful for what Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been doing.

“They have been investing heavily in all the various sectors not only in the fight against polio. That is why we believe that some of us locally really have to partner him and assist. He cannot do everything in this whole world by himself. It is not just possible. So, we have to do our own bit to make sure that yes we assist in what he is doing and also give him that support. It is about logistics, it is about funding, it is about doing the right thing and I think we the locals have to help because he is not here all the time. He has a very good excellent team on ground and they are partnering our own team to make sure things are done right.

“As part of his own vision, he has actually helped to set up PHN, which we have already launched. The group includes former Minister of State for Health, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, Jim Ovia, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, and myself. We are going to invite a lot of people; we are now trying to raise a lot of money and partner Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fight some of the health sector issues, especially immunisation and polio.

“You know Bill is very modest but he has done a lot. The good news is that the polio cases we had last year, which were 112, have actually dropped to 51. So, we are actually doing right. This means if we do our own side of it and push and do massive immunisation from November, December, January, February, by next year by the grace of God, we will be celebrating total eradication of polio. We need to give him all the support so that we can fulfil his dream to make sure that Nigeria is free of polio.”

Dangote added: “We are trying to raise fund for the total health sector not just for polio. And the amount of money we are going to raise. We are going to raise as much as possible in billions. There is no limit to what we are going to raise. Apart from the private sector health alliance, we will do our own bit.

“We as Dangote Group are going to do quite a lot. As a matter of fact, we are going to increase our own spending next year. Next year January, we will be celebrating 20th year of our foundation. We will be doing a very big endowment and when we get there, we will know what we will spend on health education, empowerment and relief for natural disasters.”

Gates and Dangote also paid Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola a courtesy visit and restated their commitment to the eradication of polio in Nigeria.

Alhaji Aliko Dangote to build $8bn oil refinery in Nigeria

Africa’s richest man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, plans to invest up to $8bn to build a Nigerian oil refinery with a capacity of around 400,000 barrels a day by late 2016, the tycoon told Reuters on Tuesday.
This will almost double Nigeria’s current refining capacity.

“This will really help not only Nigeria but sub-Saharan Africa. There has not been a new refinery for a long time in sub-Saharan Africa,” Dangote said in a telephone interview.

The country currently has the capacity to produce some 445,000 barrels per day among four refineries, but they operate well below that owing to decades of mismanagement and corruption in Africa’s leading energy producer.

Nigeria, the continent’s second-biggest economy, relies on subsidised imports for 80 per cent of its fuel needs.

A surge in domestic capacity would be welcomed by investors in Nigeria, but it would cut into profits made by European refiners and oil traders who would lose part of that lucrative market.

Dangote said the country’s ability to import fuel would soon be challenged.

“In five years, when our population is over 200 million, we won’t have the infrastructure to receive the amount of fuel we use. It has to be done,” he said.

Past efforts to build refineries have often been delayed or cancelled, but analysts have said Dangote should be able to build a profitable Nigerian refinery, owing to his past successes in industry and his strong government connections.

The Dangote Group’s cement manufacturing, basic food processing and other industries have helped lift his personal fortune to $16.1bn from $2.1bn in 2010, according to the latest Forbes estimate. Nigeria has two refineries in its main Port Harcourt oil hub, one in the Niger Delta town of Warri, and one in Kaduna in the North that serve 170 million people. Not one of them functions at full capacity.

Analysts have said previous attempts to get the refineries going have been held back by vested interests such as fuel importers profiting from the status quo. Dangote said this concerned him. “The people who were supposed to invest in refineries, who understand the market, are benefiting from there being no refineries because of the fuel import business,” he said. “Some … are going to try to … interfere.”

Nigeria’s government subsidises fuel imports to keep pump prices well below the market rate at a cost of billions of dollars a year. Fuel subsidies are the single biggest item on the country’s budget.

Dangote said making a new refinery run at a profit would work even if the government failed to scrap the subsidised fuel price that has deterred others from investing.

“We’ve done our numbers and the numbers are okay,” he said.