Africa’s leading cement manufacturer, Dangote Cement Plc, has posted a strong performance in the first quarter ended March 31 2020, with Profit Before Tax (PBT) up by 11%, increasing from N78.96 billion to N88.06 billion.

According to the cement company’s unaudited first quarter report, gross profit rose by three percent, from N140.68 billion to N144.86 billion. Group net profit stood at N60.60 billion.

Revenue was equally on the increase, growing from N240.16 billion to N249.18 billion, indicating an increase of 3.8%. Dangote Cement sold a total volume of 4.0Mt in Nigeria while Pan African sales accounted for 2.28MT.

Chief Executive Officer, Dangote Cement, Michel Puchercos, in his comments commended the resiliency of the management and staff of the company in delivering good results despite the lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said “From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have proactively deployed all recommended measures to protect the health and well-being of our employees, customers, suppliers and communities. As such, we have implemented several rigorous protocols in all our operations across the continent.

We are closely monitoring all markets according to the guidance provided by the authorities in each country. We continue to provide superior services and deliver high quality products to our customers. 2020 started strongly, with growth across the board despite the early effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. We achieved a record high quarterly EBITDA margin in Pan-Africa and a record high quarter in Nigeria, with revenues of ₦179B and domestic volumes at 4.0Mt.”

“In April, Dangote Cement successfully raised ₦100B series 1 Bond from the Nigerian Debt Capital Market despite the current challenging environment. This illustrates investors’ continuous confidence in Dangote Cement’s strategy.

This landmark transaction is the largest ever bond issuance by a corporate issuer in Nigeria. It allows us to further broaden our sources of funding by accessing long-term debt at competitive costs from the capital market” he added.

Dangote Cement recorded volume growth in 6 of our 9 operations; strong volume growth in Congo and Sierra Leone
Detailed breakdown of the results indicated that with Pan-African sales volume at 2.28 MT, it contributed 36.2% of Group volumes. There was strong volume growth in Ethiopia, Senegal, Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Congo. Plans are concluded to further deploy clinker and cement export strategy across West and Central Africa.
Dangote Cement Plc is Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest cement producer with an installed capacity of 45.6Mta capacity across 10 African countries and operates a fully integrated “quarry-to-customer” business with activities covering manufacturing, sales and distribution of cement.

The Group has a production capacity of 29.3Mta in its home market, Nigeria. It has three cement plants in Nigeria, Obajana plant in Kogi state, with 13.3Mta of capacity across four lines; Ibese plant in Ogun State has four cement lines with a combined installed capacity of 12Mta and Gboko plant in Benue state has 4Mta. Through recent investments, Dangote Cement has eliminated Nigeria’s dependence on imported cement and has transformed the nation into an exporter of cement serving neighboring countries.

In addition, Dangote Cement has operations in Cameroon (1.5Mta clinker grinding), Congo (1.5Mta), Ghana (1.5Mta import), Ethiopia (2.5Mta), Senegal (1.5Mta), Sierra Leone (0.5Mta import), South Africa (2.8Mta), Tanzania (3.0Mta), Zambia (1.5Mta).

Dangote Cement has a long-term credit rating pf AA+ by GCR and Aa2.ng by Moody’s due to its market leading position, significant operational scale and strong financial profile evidenced by the Company’s robust operating and net profit margins relative to regional and global peers, adequate working capital, satisfactory cashflow and low leverage.

Dangote Cement is a subsidiary of Dangote Industries Limited, a diversified and fully integrated conglomerate as well as a leading brand across Africa in businesses such as cement, sugar, salt, pasta, beverages, and real estate, with new multi-billion dollar projects underway in the oil and gas, petrochemical, fertilizer and agricultural sectors.

…Inspects road project

President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote has assured that the Apapa Port Wharf concrete road currently under construction by his company, AG Dangote would be delivered on schedule to save the people and businesses the hassles of the traffic gridlock being experienced now.

He gave the assurance yesterday when he visited the construction area in company with the Managing Director of the AG Dangote Construction Company, Mr Ashif Juma to assess the extent of work done.

The Apapa Port road which is the artery of the nation’s non-oil economy, has been in a state of disrepair over a long period of time with experts claiming that the nation is losing about N20 billion daily owing to the state of dilapidation of the road as imports are trapped in the ports for days as a result of traffic gridlock generated by the bad road.

Dangote Group, a pan African Conglomerate and a major stakeholder at the ports brokered a tripartite arrangement with Flour Mills, a leading Nigerian Food Company and Nigerian Port Authority, (NPA), taking over the road from the Federal Government and undertaking the reconstruction of the road into a lasting concrete pavement as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility.

The road construction in which both NPA and Flour Mills have financial outlay as their contributions while AG Dangote Construction, a subsidiary of the Dangote Group, is undertaking the construction, is to cost the three partners N4.3 billion

Dangote said the road will be completed in few months’ time and that Nigerians would be surprised to see the project delivered even before scheduled, saying efforts are being redoubled by his company to ensure quality job and timely completion.

According to him: by the time the road construction is completed, even some of the advanced countries would not be able to boast of the quality.”

He explained that what actually delay the take-off of the project was the gas pipeline that has to be relocated to pave the way for unfettered construction work “and having done that, you could see that the work is progressing at a very fast speed.”

The businessman while relying on the reports of the challenges encountered by the site engineers appealed to the authorities to help see to the disturbing issue of multiple check points being mounted by security agencies and which have been creating long queues of trailers and thus affecting free flow of work on the road project.

He also explained that his company has agreed with the federal government to do some palliatives on the Mile2 expressway road to ease the traffic congestion and ensure free flow of vehicular movement.

Dangote stated that the road was very strategic because Apapa and Tin Can Island ports handle about 80 per cent of the cargo that come into Nigeria and the condition of the road has made nonsense of businesses depending on the ports efficient operations.

He said that he more worried about the fate of small businesses and other port users that have imported cargo and whose charges are accumulating every day.

Mr. Juma took Dangote and his team round the construction area and showed him how they have been following the designs handed over to his company.

Speaking in similar vein, Group Managing Director of Flour Mills, Mr. Paul Gbededo said the three partners have shown how to be good corporate citizens saying by the time the road project is completed it would be one never seen before in the country.

L-R: Group Managing Director, Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc, Paul Gbededo; President/CE, Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote; Managing Director, AG-Dangote Construction Company Limited; and Acting Group Managing Director, Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc, Engr, Abdullahi Sule, on the road inspection of Apapa-Wharf Road under construction by AG-Dangote Construction Company…on Wednesday.

L-R: Federal Controller, Works Lagos, Godwin Eke; Group Managing Director, Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc, Paul Gbededo; President/CE, Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote; and Managing Director, AG-Dangote Construction Company Limited, on the road inspection of Apapa-Wharf Road under construction by AG-Dangote Construction Company on Wednesday

L-R: Group Managing Director, Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc, Paul Gbededo; President/CE, Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote; and Managing Director, AG-Dangote Construction Company Limited, on the road inspection of Apapa-Wharf Road under construction by AG-Dangote Construction Company on Wednesday

L-R: President/CE, Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote; Managing Director, AG-Dangote Construction Company Limited; and Acting Group Managing Director, Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc, Engr, Abdullahi Sule, on the road inspection of Apapa-Wharf Road under construction by AG-Dangote Construction Company on Wednesday

President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has emerged one of the selected ‘Best 50’ in the world in 2017 Bloomberg on Monday announced The Bloomberg 50, a new, annual, multi-platform initiative that honor 50 icons and innovators who have changed the global business landscape in measurable ways over the past year.

The first Bloomberg 50 honorees were selected by the Bloomberg Businessweek team after months of input from many of Bloomberg’s 2,700 journalists and analysts around the globe, leveraging the resources of the Bloomberg Terminal, and represent the most influential thought leaders in business, finance, technology and science, politics, and entertainment.

The executives, entrepreneurs, experts, and entertainers on the Bloomberg 50 all have a quantifiable metric underpinning their inclusion.
“What sets The Bloomberg 50 apart from other lists is that each person chosen has demonstrated measurable change over the past year,” said Megan Murphy, editor of Bloomberg Businessweek. “Readers will find many names they recognize, but will also discover new visionaries—people who are impacting the world in significant ways, and are rapidly gaining the attention they deserve.”

Other prominent honoree on the Bloomberg 50 include – Mohammed bin Salman, Crown prince, Saudi Arabia, a primary proponent of an initiative that would allow women to drive, a decision that is forecast to add $90 billion to the economy by 2030; Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies with a market capitalization of over $50 billion. Elon Musk nurses the ambition to establish human colony on planet Mars by 2022; Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon, the biggest global retailer, with a major interest in sending tourists into space in Blue Origin rockets; Masayoshi Son, Founder, Softbank Groups Corp., who engineered the largest ever technology investment fund, $93billion, to fund ride-hailing, artificial intelligence, connected devices, satellites, and the integration of computers to humans; Diane Greene, CEO, Google Cloud and the brain behind integrating advances in artificial intelligence and quantum computing to market; Ken Frazier, CEO, Merck & Co., a leader in drug makers market with an innovative drug for advanced lung cancer treatment.

Dangote, who only last week inaugurated his $300 million 1.5 mtpa capacity cement plant in Congo Brazzaville, has remained a top notch in various global ranking. Dangote said: “I am very delighted with this selection and I see the recognition as a call to do more towards youth empowerment, job creation, better health for the people and economic emancipation of the African continent”

As of February 2017, Dangote, according to Forbes Magazine had an estimated net worth of US$12.5 billion. He is ranked by Forbes magazine as the 67th richest person in the world and the richest in Africa, and peaked on the list as the 23rd richest person in the world in 2014. Bloomberg is a global information and technology company, that connect decision makers to a dynamic network of data, people and ideas – “accurately delivering business and financial information, news and insights to customers around the world”

Bloomberg in the preface written by Paul Wallace synopsized Dangote’s person and business in the following words: “the quiet billionaire for his relatively frugal lifestyle, Dangote fast-tracked plans to help his country of 180 million people import less of what it eats. Dangote, who made his fortune in the cement industry, is turning his attention to dairy and sugar farming; he’s earmarked $800 million to buy 50,000 cattle in the hope of producing 500 million liters of milk annually by 2019.

He’s also racing to finish a 650,000-barrel-a-day oil refinery near Lagos, set to be one of the world’s biggest, and says he intends to spend as much as $50 billion in the next decade on renewable energy and petrochemical refineries, including investments in the U.S. and Europe. Which is all fine, but not quite his grand ambition: buying Arsenal, his favorite soccer team”

Nigeria’s business mogul, Aliko Dangote has declared that Africa will soon become the food basket of the world.

Dangote told investors “Agriculture, agriculture, agriculture in the United Nations that Africa will become the food basket of the world.”

In a packed room at the headquarters of global law firm Shearman and Sterling LLC  high level business leaders and international diplomats invited by the Corporate Council for Africa to hear Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, and Rwandan president Paul Kagame openly converse on Africa’s opportunities and challenges.

Both leaders underscored the ongoing movement to diversify African economies. In the case of  Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy, Dangote stated “we should pray that oil prices remain low. This helps wean us off the dependency on revenues from petroleum. We must take oil to be the icing on the cake. We already have the cake,” he added.

In addition to agriculture Dangote cited Nigeria’s vast mineral resources and gas as well and the need to manufacture more goods locally for domestic consumption. Both he and President Kagame cited continued need for heavy investments in education and connected the need for young people to be well trained for the jobs of tomorrow.

Dangote predicted that “five of the twelve million jobs needed in Africa soon must be created in Nigeria.”

Dangote’s fortune which stems from cement, sugar, and other household commodities has expanded into fertilizer and other processed high-value goods. “Technology of course helps us a lot and our factories are state of the art with the use of robotics but we shouldn’t be overly tech oriented to create wealth,” he told investors.

Mr. Dangote who is often cited as one of the most inspiring business leaders in the world today and a model for young entrepreneurs offered advice to Americans who tend to rely on outdated news and wrong perceptions of Africa, “Don’t be lazy. Go there and find the real story for yourself. Things have changed.”

Dangote noted the Rwanda success story where he has business interests as an example of positive change, good governance and leadership, and where corruption has been cured. He cited a personal experience of offering a $100 US tip for services at the Kigali Airport to staff who refused to take money for work they were paid to do. President Kagame was praised for delivering the environment for growth he promised. “There is nothing African about corruption,” the Rwandan president added.

The session was moderated by Rosa Whitaker, former US Trade Representative and author of the AGOA (African Growth Opportunity Act), whose business consultancy is credited for helping both African governments and US companies develop commerce.

Weekly equity transactions on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) closed on Thursday on upbeat note as the All-Share Index grew by 1.42 per cent.
The index rose by 507.12 basis points to close higher at 336,116.19 against the 35,609.07 achieved on Wednesday.
Market capitalisation, which opened at N12.249 trillion, rose by N175 billion or 1.42 per cent to close at N12.448 trillion.

An analysis of the price movement chart indicated that Dangote Cement recorded the highest gain to lead the gainers table by N9.79 to close at N216.91 per share.
Guinness followed with a gain of N8.94 to close at N1, 126, while Stanbic IBTC appreciated by N1.49 to close at N39.9 per share.

Nigeria Breweries gained N1.4 to close at N184, while Flour Mill increased by N1 to close at N30 per share.
Conversely, Seplat topped the losers’ chart, losing N24.1 to close at N457.9 per share. Mobil trailed with a loss 99k to close at N165.61, while NCR lost 36k to close at N6.97 per share.

FBNH depreciated by 20k to close at N5.76, while Oando shed by 23k to close at N6.3 per share.
The volume of shares traded, however, decreased by 20.99 per cent with an exchange of 222.69 million shares worth N4.17 billion traded in 4,622 deals.

This was in contrast to the 281.83 million shares valued at N5.42 billion traded in 4,066 deals on Wednesday.
Sterling Bank emerged the toast of investors, accounting for 36.58 million shares valued at N37.25 million.
It was followed by Royalex with 35.72 million shares valued at N17.86 million.
Fidelity Bank traded 21.91 million shares worth N29.39 million, while Access Bank sold 21.55 million shares worth N212.45 million.