David people would not recognize me if my tie was fixed. Leave it this way. All right. David i do not consider myself a journalist. Nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of an interviewer where though i have a day job of running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . Aliko dangote is known to be the wealthiest man in africa. Is that a title you are proud to have or one where you get people calling you for money, you wish you were not the wealthiest man in africa . Aliko first of all, thank you very much. It is great to be here. When they call me the wealthiest person in africa, it comes with a lot of baggage. There are a lot of demands. People come up with different demands. It is good because i like to give back to the society. David you are involved in many philanthropic endeavors in africa and elsewhere. Lets go through some of them before you actually made all of this money. Recently, you had an event in new york with mo ibrahim, a wealthy african businessperson, and bill gates, in which you provided a fair amount of money for the African Center in harlem. What is the African Center and why did you do that . Aliko we did the African Center idea, it started with Chelsea Clinton and my daughter. My daughter joined them later. We need to make this African Center a reality to be able to project africa in a better light. Bring africa to the rest of the world. Especially when you look at the United Nations general assembly, the entire world converges in new york. We want to tell the world the real narrative of africa and tell the rest of the world what africa is about. It has to do with policy, business, and culture. Sometimes, especially americans, they do not understand much about africa. Somebody will say, africans, what language do you speak . In africa, we speak about 2000 different languages. That is a lot. David one of the problems in africa is health. You have been involved in trying to eradicate polio in nigeria. Along with bill gates and his foundation. What is the progress you have made . Aliko we have done quite a lot. The progress has been tremendous in the last three years. Hopefully, when we work between now and the next six months, we will be satisfied. The entire african continent will be poliofree. David one of the things you are doing is building a hospital in nigeria. Why do you feel the need to build a new hospital . Aliko i think we need to build a worldclass hospital because when you look at it in nigeria, we spent a lot of money where people go abroad for medical checkups, for operations. What you are trying to do is give hope to the population. To be able to say, you do not need to travel abroad. We will be able to treat you there. David nigeria is the most populous country in africa. Is that right . Aliko it is. David it is growing at a large rate. Aliko about 3 . David at the current rate, at some point, more people will be in nigeria than the United States. Aliko by 2050, we will be at 450 million population. I am sure we will be way ahead of the states. We will be number three after china and india. David by 2050, you could be the thirdbiggest country by population. Does that make you nervous about whether nigeria can house and feed all these people . Aliko it does not make me nervous. Land. E massive we have a lot of water. We have the right climate. When you look at major contributors of gdp are agriculture. We need to change from the normal oilreliance economy to agriculture. David nigeria is known for having large oil deposits. Is that a contributor to the nigerian economy . Aliko it contributes 90 of the Foreign Exchange that we have. Of thecent 60 government revenue is coming from the oil. If the government is doing a lot to try to satisfy the economy. Try to structure their own taxes. We need to make more money from taxes. We are working hard to adjust these. David as the wealthiest man in africa and nigeria, do you get pressure to run for Political Office . Would you like to be president . Aliko i think i am doing a great job where i am right now. I do not think i need to be in a political space. Some of us need to do lead in terms of the trajectory of the broken africa through business, not through political leadership. David lets talk about how you made this money. It is by far the largest amount of money any individual has in africa. You came from a wealthy family or not a wealthy family . Aliko i came from a wealthy family. My late greatgrandfather in the 1940s was the richest west african. My late grandfather was one of the wealthiest nigerians. The family name is from my maternal side. My father was rich, in business and also politics. One thing i am proud of, i did not inherit any money from my father. I built everything from scratch to where i am. David your father died when you were young. Aliko he died when i was eight years old. David he did not leave a large amount of money . Aliko he left in the will, whatever i inherited from him, id give that to charities since then. David did you go to college in nigeria . Aliko i went in egypt. David what did you study . Aliko business. David you graduated at what age . Aliko i graduated at 20 years old. David you went back from egypt to nigeria. Did you get a job . What did you do . Aliko i work with my uncle. That i started my own business. Buying cement. It was a lowkey business. David you are a trader. You are not making cement, you are treating it. Why is a cement a big part of africas wealth . Aliko when you look at cement, cement is what builds infrastructure. We need a lot of infrastructure. In nigeria, we have 17,000 housing. It is all over africa. When we started cement in nigeria, we realized it was imported. We went in there, it is a long story. David you were trading cement. Was it hard to get the money to keep the business going . Aliko it was not really hard. By 1980, we were importing rice, sugar, commodities. The cement, i was doing local trading. It was not an importing business. We started to pour the cement in 2000. David you had a cement trading business. Somebody thought buying it, you decided not to sell. You then decided to build your own cementmanufacturing business. Is that right . Aliko i decided in 2003 to build my own cement. At that time nigeria was only producing 1. 9 million tons. We started producing 5 million tons of cement. David what year was that . Ko we started building at the end of 2003. We finished in 2007. David you are the largest cement manufacturer in nigeria. Aliko the largest cement manufacturer. David you are building a refinery in nigeria. Why does nigeria need another refinery . Aliko we have only two water refineries. David the cement business is the core of your wealth and company. You are building other things. You are building a refinery. Why does nigeria need another refinery . Aliko let me give you a little bit of history. What we have done with the group, we use businesses to build the future of the business. In a sugar, it was the sugar profits we used to build the cement. Now with cement, we are building so many things. Refineries, fertilizer, petroleum. Then also chemicals. With the refinery, why are we building a refinery . When you look at the entire side of africa, we have two working refineries. One is in south africa. The majority of these countries, almost all of the south african countries, they do not have refineries. We realized that the majority of the foreignexchange in nigeria was to petroleum for imports. David nigeria is exporting oil and has to buy Refined Oil Products back. What you are doing is building one of the largest refineries in the world . Aliko it is 650,000 barrels a day. David to do that, you have to borrow money . Where did the money come from . Aliko what we are doing now, we are borrowing from the commercial banks. We are also borrowing from Financial Institutions like the african bank. David Many Companies outside of invest wouldike to like to invest in africa. Where do you recommend they invest . Are there good Investment Opportunities for nonafricans in africa . Aliko there are opportunities for everybody. I think there is protection for everybody. Let me give you an example. In nigeria, if i have my partnership with you, i will not have what you call minimum taxation. If the company is owned by myself alone, as a nigerian entity, we have a minimum taxation. That is a lot in terms of inviting foreigners to invest. Going to is a very good place to ghana. As well going david i first met you a number of years ago. Today, the bloom seems to be off the rose in african investing. It was very attractive six years ago. Today, it is less attractive. Is that because economies in africa have gone down . Aliko i think most of that reason has to do with lack of understanding. Look at the investments made, 90 of what we invested in has done well. I think it is where you should invest. Myself as an african, i cannot invest in every sector. I have to be choosy where i invest. There is a lot of a wrong perception. People read stories from newspapers and believe what they are reading. I think, as we go along, there are a lot of changes in most african countries to try and change to focus on the economy. David how many people are there in lagos . Aliko we have 25 million. It is small. David getting around is not easy. Getting around new york is not easy either. When you get around, do you have special police cars . Aliko i get around, sometimes i have a police escort, but not all the time. I drive myself. David you drive yourself . Aliko yes i do. David do people say, there is the wealthiest men in africa driving himself . Aliko they do sometimes. David when you go to restaurants, do people come up for selfies or ask for money . Aliko they do not ask for money. Even here, when i go to places to eat, i get requests for selfies. It is normal. David you have some outside interests. One of them i think you are interested in the United States we call soccer, other people call football. The arsenal team, is that a team you would like to buy . Aliko yes, i would like to buy someday. Today, we have 20 billion worth of projects. I think that is what i want to concentrate on. I am trying to finish building the company. After we finish, maybe in 2021. David you are not buying a team right now . Aliko not right now. I am buying arsenal when i finish. I am trying to take the company to the next level. David what are the attributes you think you brought to the table which make you successful . Aliko the most important one, if you are going into any business, you must understand the business. You must know that business. David in terms of africa itself, are you bullish on africas prospects . Aliko i think i am bullish when it comes to africa. We have 20 billion to invest, which we will finish by the and , in the nextt year two years. I am very bullish. I have done very well in africa. If we continue with what we are doing today, based on our own projections, we will be in the fortune 500. David sometimes i see advertisements for dangote, your company. Is that general brand building . Why do you advertise in the United States because most of your businesses are not in the United States . Aliko we are not going to remain only in africa, we are going to invest outside africa. We are mainly investing in subsaharan africa. If you look at what you are building today, we have a of 4y that has revenues billion. In the next two years, the company will have a revenue of 30 billion. With that, we will have quite a lot of money. What we are trying to is use a major part of that money and invest outside africa and maybe 40 we will invest in africa. David you are in your early 60s. Aliko i am 62. David you intend to do this for 10 more years . 20 more years . Aliko i think i will maybe be active in the next 15 years. David suppose someone is watching this and wants to be a successful businessman in africa. What are the attributes you think you have brought to the table which make you successful . Is it intelligence . Hard work . Persistence . What are the most important attributes . Aliko the most important one, if you are going into any business, you must understand the business. You must know that business. You should not invest because somebody will say, that is good money. You have to understand the business in and out. That is the difference with me. I know my business in and out. You can wake me anytime and ask me about fertilizer, anything we are doing. The other one is to work hard and you have to have the tenacity to continue. You have some hiccups here or there. But you have to be focused in terms of what you are doing. I have known you for a while and i never seem to get you to yell or scream. You seem very lowkey. You do not use the technique of yelling or screaming at people. To what do you attribute that . Aliko that is my nature. I am very quiet. I am very calm. I get upset sometimes when people try to outsmart me. I do not like people who will not tell me the truth. I always like people to look at me and tell me the truth. David are you investing in the United States . Aliko we are going to start investing in the United States. We want to open a Family Office in new york and london. We have an office in london, which has been operating for 30 years. We want to turn part of that into a Family Office to diversify the wealth. I have discussed this with you before. Sometimes in africa, you have issues of devaluation. David sometimes wealthy people collect art, collect cars, collect other things. With some of your wealth you are philanthropy, rua are you a collector . Aliko i am not really a collector of art. When i have excess money, i put more terms of strategies. I do not have an expensive lifestyle. David the pleasure of your life is building your company and giving away extra money . Aliko that is my greatest pleasure in life. David it is a good success story. I know a lot of people wanted to hear how you have done it and i guess you are saying it is hard work and persistence. A little luck from time to time. Aliko definitely. Luck must be there. If there is no luck, you cannot make it. David thank you for coming today. I appreciate you giving us your insights. Aliko thank you so much. [ sigh ] not gonna happen. Thats it. Im calling kohler about their walkin bath. My name is ken. How may i help you . Hi, im calling about kohlers walkin bath. Excellent happy to help. Huh . Hold one moment please. [ finger snaps ] hmm. The kohler walkin bath features an extrawide opening and a low stepin at three inches, which is 25 to 60 lower than some leading competitors. The bath fills and drains quickly, while the heated seat soothes your back, neck and shoulders. Kohler is an expert in bathing, so you can count on a deep soaking experience. Are you seeing this . The kohler walkin bath comes with fully adjustable hydrotherapy jets and our exclusive bubblemassage. Everything is installed in as little as a day by a kohlercertified installer. And its made by kohler americas leading plumbing brand. We need this bath. Yes. Yes you do. A kohler walkin bath provides independence with peace of mind. Ask about saving up to 1500 on your installation. David over the last 30 years ive seen a lot of crises and managed some myself, but nothing ive seen before is like the crisis we have now. A health crisis, energy crisis, financial crisis. The combination of all of those has made the job of being a ceo extraordinarily difficult. I want to talk to ceos to see how they are living through the crisis and how they are dealing with customers, employees, and the government. How will they rise to the occasion . What will make these ceos great . Thats what i want to know. This is leadership live. I am pleased to have as our special guest, secretary of the treasury, steven mnuchin. I know you are busy and you have a million things going on
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