2023-04-26 18:29:41
Nigerian billionaire and entrepreneur Aliko Dangote, 66, has expressed interest in acquiring French Ligue 2 football club Valenciennes. At the head of one of the largest industrial conglomerates in Africa, ranked first fortune of the African continent for several years, France 24 draws his portrait.
It weighs 13.5 billion dollars, according to the American magazine Forbes. This makes him the richest in Africa – for the twelfth consecutive year – ahead of South African businessmen Johann Rupert and Nicky Oppenheimer. Nigerian entrepreneur Aliko Dangote, 66, is at the heart of the sports news of recent days.
According to the economic site Entreprendre.fr, the African billionaire could soon buy the French club Valenciennes (VAFC), in fifteenth place in the Ligue 2 championship, and currently for sale. The billionaire’s decision was taken in early April according to the media, which specifies that the amount of the transaction would be around ten million euros.
On April 13, in the sports daily l’Équipe, Eddy Zdziech, the president of Valenciennes, confirmed that there was indeed a “rapprochement” with Aliko Dangote. Also according to the Team, the club was put up for sale at the end of April 2022.
The site also indicates that Aliko Dangote would not be satisfied with just buying the Hauts-de-France club. It aims to restore it financially and give it the necessary means – both in terms of infrastructure and recruitment – to make it one of the major players in European football.
Entreprendre.fr specifies that the African tycoon also has “its entries” in France. He was also received by French President François Hollande at the Élysée in 2016, and met his successor, Emmanuel Macron, twice. The first time in 2018 in Lagos (economic capital of Nigeria) and the second in Versailles, in 2019, on the occasion of the “Choose France” summit.
The economic media indicates that the African billionaire would also be close to several former ministers such as Jean-Louis Borloo, a time president of the Valenciennes club.
Aliko’s name Dangote is already known in the world of football. He had already tried to acquire the English club Arsenal, his heart club (currently owned by the American Stan Kroenke), especially in 2010. An ambition reiterated in the late 2010sand even in 2021. Without success, for the moment.
From a merchant family
His other successes, on the other hand – those that made his fortune – are his business, particularly in cement, which is the heart of his empire, but also in the food industry (sugar, flour, rice, tomato, etc.), and, more recently, oil and fertilizer.
Born in 1957 in Kano, the second largest city in Nigeria (located in the northeast), Aliko Dangote is Hausa, one of the largest ethnolinguistic groups in the country concentrated mainly in the north. He also seems predestined to make a career – and succeed – in the business world, he who comes from a wealthy family of merchants.
The latter helped him start his first business in Kano in 1977. He was then twenty years old. “His wealthy maternal grandfather (Sanusi Dantata) and his uncle gave him his first boost, with a loan to be repaid over two years and a donation of 500 000 naira at the time (the equivalent of 980 euro today). It is also said that he was given, in addition, three trucks of cement to start as a distributor”, explains Emmanuel Igah, Franco-Nigerian political scientist and director of Phobos international, a consulting firm specializing in geopolitics and international development. Aliko Dangote’s business acumen does the rest.
Today, after the success of his first cement company and the expansion into other business sectors, his conglomerate is one of the largest on the African continent. Its head office is located in Lagos. “He is everywhere. It has spread, and it is spreading every day, practically, in different activities in African countries, sometimes the most distant”, explains Emmanuel Igah. According to Forbes, his cement company “Dangote Cement” is the largest producer in all of Africa.
The businessman has chosen to invest in his country, but also on the African continent. “He prided himself on being a pan-Africanist. He is turned towards his country first, but gradually towards Africa. He favors them”, adds the manager.
He also tries to maintain good relations with the political world in his country. “One of Dangote’s strengths is knowing how to navigate the commercial and industrial world in Nigeria so that you have no problem with any power. He conducts his business in such a way that one cannot pinning him down for some act of corruption or theft of public money. That’s one of the secrets of his success. That doesn’t mean he’s an angel, but objectively, he’s never been implicated by the Nigerian courts, except for commercial disputes which were quickly settled.”
An “extremely discreet” man
The character is also an “extremely discreet man (…) it is rare to see him appear at receptions or public parties. He is also humble and accessible. If you go to Kano, or to his company’s headquarters in Lagos, if you have a good reason to see it, it will open its doors to you,” says Emmanuel Igah. The latter adds that Aliko Dangote is “very rich”, and “he knows that people know that he is. So he does not need to show it more. He does not display his opulence”.
Philanthropist, Aliko Dangote launched his own foundation in the early 1990s. On his websiteshe says she works actively on issues of health, education, empowerment of individuals and humanitarian aid in Nigeria but also across Africa.
Always according to the foundation’s websiteAliko Dangote is also a member of the board of directors of the group co-founded by the singer of U2, Bono, “ONE” – fighting against extreme poverty – and collaborates with the Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation, which fights against poliomyelitis .
#fortune #Africa #Aliko #Dangote #set #foot #French #football