Abdul
Samad Rabiu, Africa's billionaires and business tycoon who is taking
the world by storm and listed as one of Africa's youngest billionaires.
It was on a frosty autumn night in London when an expensive car
drove into the courtyard of a wealthy home. Shortly, on the entrance
steps, the doors swung open and coming out was one of Africa’s richest
men on a T-shirt, jeans and black overcoat. Hardly could one imagine
that the man is the chairman and CEO of BUA Group, a privately-owned
conglomerate with interests in manufacturing, infrastructure and
agriculture and annual revenues estimated at $2 billion.
The look may be modest but his ambitions are to invest more than
$500 million in Nigeria’s economy over the next few years. This is
Abdulsamad Rabiu, the unassuming Nigerian business tycoon, full of life,
with a keen ear and a great business story.
Rabiu’s stake in his commodities and cement empire, plus his real
estate holdings in South Africa and London, are worth $1.2 billion,
primarily due to better information on Rabiu’s holdings and the revenue
of his companies. In 2013, he ranked 23rd on Forbes list of Africa’s 50
Richest.
Interestingly, he was born to a well-known businessman, Khalifah
Isyaku Rabiu, who made a fortune in trade and industry in the decades
after Nigeria’s independence from the United Kingdom in 1960. By the
1970s, Isyaku emerged as a key sponsor of the National Party of Nigeria,
which became the ruling political party after the country returned to
civil rule following the elections of 1979.
In 1984, the Head of State at the time, General Muhammadu Buhari,
who had taken over the government in a military coup, arrested Isyaku
and jailed him along with other commodity traders on charges of rice
hoarding.
During this period, the younger Rabiu earned his bachelor’s degree
in economics from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio. Barely 24 years
old then, Abdul Samad returned to Nigeria to lead his father’s business
empire during the dark days. As a young executive director at the
company, he was able to steer the family business out of trouble created
by the absence of their father.
When he had successfully navigated his father’s business through
stormy waters, he established a trading and manufacturing company called
it BUA International Limited in 1988 for the sole purpose of commodity
trading and importation of rice, edible oil, flour, iron and steel.
In 1990, the then government-owned Delta Steel Company contracted
BUA to supply its raw material needs, for which BUA company was paid
with finished products. This provided the much needed windfall for the
young company. The company further ventured into steel, billets and iron
ore importation and supplying multiple rolling mills in Nigeria.
Few years down the line, BUA acquired Nigerian Oil Mills Limited,
the largest edible oil processing company in Nigeria and later set up
two flour milling plants in Lagos and Kano in 2005. By 2008, it broke an
eight-year monopoly in the Nigerian sugar industry by commissioning the
second largest sugar refinery in sub-saharan Africa. The company went
on the acquire a controlling stake in a publicly listed Cement Company
of Northern Nigeria in 2009 and commenced the construction of a $500
million cement plant in Edo State.
Abdul Samad Rabiu loves giving back and sometimes uses BUA
Foundation for his philanthropic activities. These include the
construction of a 7,000 Square metre paediatric ward at the Aminu Kano
Teaching Hospital as well as the construction of the Centre for Islamic
Studies at the Bayero University, Kano, among several others.
Besides his assets in the BUA Group, Rabiu owns property in Britain
worth $62 million and in South Africa, worth $19 million. Among his
properties is a house in Gloucester Square in London worth nearly $16
million and a penthouse at The One & Only Hotel, in Cape Town, worth
$12.6 million. Rabiu’s taste for good living is plain to see; he has
bought homes from Eaton Square to Avenue Road, also known as
Millionaires’ Row.
Rabiu jets around the world on an 8-seater Gulfstream G550 worth
$44.9 million, powered by a Rolls-Royce BR710 turbofan engine, as well
as an $18-million Legacy 600 aircraft.
Rabiu’s achievements in the industry have not gone unrecognised,
even by the government. In 2010, he was appointed as chairman of
Nigeria’s Bank of Industries (BoI), a bank that provides finance to
local and foreign entrepreneurs looking to establish new industries in
the country.
Source: LeadershipNG
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