Dangote Industries Limited

Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) is the largest industrial conglomerate in West Africa and one of the largest on the African continent, with annual group turnover in excess of USD 4 billion and more than 30,000 employees across 17 African countries. Founded in 1981 by Alhaji Aliko Dangote GCON (born 10 April 1957 in Kano) as a small trading venture with a USD 3,000 loan from his grandfather, initially importing sugar, cement, rice, fisheries, and other consumer goods. Aliko Dangote is a graduate of Business Studies from Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt (1977). The group moved into manufacturing in the 1990s, starting with textiles in 1989, then flour milling, salt processing, and sugar refining by the end of the decade. The group is notable for its high degree of vertical integration and now owns and operates over 18 subsidiaries across cement, sugar, salt, condiments, packaging, energy, port operations, fertilizer, petrochemicals, refining, and agriculture. Aliko Dangote has been ranked the richest person in Africa for 13+ consecutive years by Forbes and Bloomberg, and was named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2014. The group is the second-largest employer of labour in Nigeria outside the federal government.