●Lender partners cement firm on CP
Millennials in Nigeria and across Africa should diversify from service-oriented enterprises to manufacturing and agriculture in a bid to fast track the development of the continent and better life for her nationals, Executive Director, the Dangote Group, Hajiya Halima Aliko-Dangote, has advised.
She made this call at the 58th Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Abuja yesterday.
Halima Dangote said that the economic realities around the world have shown that the way to go is agriculture and that the youths must take the lead more when most African countries are still grappling with low economic growth.
She said African countries have groped in the dark for too long and it is high time the millennials stand up to be counted as the future of the continent.
In her paper titled “Roles of Millennials in Transition and Institution Building”, the Dangote Group Director explained that the youths have the potential to turn around the fortune of the African continent. She stated that “Millennials are young ones born between 1980 and the mid-2000s, who account for 27 per cent of the global population (about 2 billion people) and Sub-Saharan Africa alone is home to 13 per cent of the entire millennial population, ranking second to Asia.
According to her, “available statistics have also revealed that by 2025, 75% of the global workforce will be millennials, large enough to influence consumer spending patterns; change consumer business models and impact the global economy. Most members of this generation are at the beginning of their careers and so will be an important engine for economic growth in the decades to come.”
Amid intermittent applause from the lawyers, Hajiya Halima Dangote stated that the theme of the conference, which is “Transition, Transformation, and Sustainable Institutions” could not have come at a better time than now and therefore lauded the Association for coming up with a subject that Nigeria and Africa needed to discuss.
She congratulated the outgoing President of the NBA, Mr. A. B. Mahmoud, the incoming President, Mr. Paul Usoro SAN, and “all my learned friends here for successfully continuing with the vision handed down by the fathers and founders of the Association.”
The Executive Director also urged millennials and other relevant stakeholders to exercise restraint in the face common desperation for wealth by their contemporaries adding that, “Success in entrepreneurship takes time, dedication and hard work. There is a need to disabuse our mind from the concept of overnight success. Industrialisation requires patience and perseverance.”
She also spoke extensively on the successes recorded by the Dangote Group, founded by her father Aliko Dangote, in creating numerous jobs and establishing value-adding industries and contemporary businesses through importation, manufacturing and backward integration to generate and highlight local content for overall development.
While noting that the achievement by the group did not come easy, Hajiya Halima Dangote said, “the Millennials should see these opportunities and diversify from service-oriented enterprises to manufacturing enterprises. Manufacturing has the capacity to create numerous jobs, develop an economy, sustain jobs and open other linkages.”
She noted, “Dangote Industries Limited is one of Nigeria’s foremost conglomerates with interests in cement, sugar, salt, flour, pasta, noodles, poly products, real estate, agriculture, logistics, telecommunications, steel, oil and gas, and beverages among others. The Group has over 15,000 direct employees. It provides indirect employment to tens of thousands of others who are engaged in activities relating to our businesses. Dangote Cement now has presence in 18 African countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Cameroon, Liberia, South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Congo, Zimbabwe, South Sudan, Chad, Mali and Niger).”
Meanwhile, Stanbic IBTC Capital and Stanbic IBTC Bank, subsidiaries of Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc, have partnered with Dangote Cement Plc to conclude another issuance of N50 billion Series 3 and 4 Notes, under the recently established Dangote Cement Plc’s N150 billion Commercial Paper (CP) Programme.
Issuance of the Series 3 and 4 Notes according to a statement from the lender, closed on Friday 17 August 2018.
Stanbic IBTC Capital is sole arranger of the CP Programme, and acted as Joint Dealer for the Series 3 and 4 Notes, whilst Stanbic IBTC Bank is the issuing, calculation and paying agent for all Notes issued under Programme. The Series 3 and 4 Notes will be listed on Nigeria’s FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange.
According to a statement from the lender, the N50 billion offering was 158 per cent subscribed, with a robust and high quality order book closing at N79 billion. The order book featured bids from a diversified pool of funds managed by Pension Fund Administrators, Asset Managers, Insurance Companies, Trustees, Registrars, Corporate Treasuries and Private Bank HNI clients.
Speaking in relation to the successful offering, Kobby Bentsi-Enchill, the Executive Director and Head, Debt Capital Markets, Stanbic IBTC Capital, expressed delight that Dangote Cement was able to achieve another landmark CP issuance, within 6 weeks of its inaugural offering.
According to Bentsi-Enchill, Stanbic IBTC Capital is committed, in line with the Stanbic IBTC Group’s value proposition and investment banking pedigree, to assist our clients with high quality advisory and arranging services that enhances their growth and expansion prospects by providing access to a diverse range of financing options within the domestic capital markets.
“Stanbic IBTC Capital will continue to exploit opportunities that support our clients with access to critical funding, short and long term, for their needs. This, we expect, will help stimulate growth via the mobilisation of debt and equity capital market instruments.
“We will continue to leverage our excellent investment banking pedigree as well as the strength of our franchise in the Standard Bank Group, the largest financial institution in Africa, to consummate such big ticket deals that will not only help businesses grow but also help deepen our capital markets.”
The Group Chief Executive Officer, Dangote Cement PLC, Engineer Joseph Oyeyani Makoju, expressed the Company’s satisfaction with the choice of Stanbic IBTC as a preferred partner, considering the financial institution’s strong pedigree and expertise in investment banking. On the issuance,
Makoju stated: “This landmark transaction, even more impressive than our first outing, remains still the largest-ever Commercial Paper issuance by a corporate issuer in Nigeria. In addition to helping us achieve our strategic objective of broadening our sources of funding, we have also made remarkable strides towards lowering our overall cost of borrowing.
“The success of this Programme reflects the high quality of our business and its strong cash generation capacity, made possible by our market leading positions in Nigeria and across Sub-Saharan Africa, where demand for cement is growing rapidly.”
