How I Became Forbes Billionaire — Abdulsamad Rabiu

Nigeria’s second richest man, Abdulsamad Rabiu, who is the founder of BUA Group has revealed why his net worth has quadrupled in the last four years based on Forbes ratings.

In May 2022, Forbes, a United States rating magazine estimated his worth at $6.5bn making him the fifth richest man in the continent.

In 2019, the billionaire was rated 16th in the continent with $1.9bn net worth and he rose to $2.9bn in 2020 and $4.9bn in 2021.

He explained during a panel session at the African Finance Corporation (AFC) Live 2022: Infrastructure Solutions Summit held in Abuja that the growth is linked to the listing of his companies on the Nigerian Exchange Ltd.

Rabiu explained, “Two years ago, we listed our cement businesses. We had endorsement and Sokoto cement and those businesses were listed, we consolidated the business and we now have BUA Cement PLC with a combined capacity of 11 millions tonnes as it is, we are set to rise to 17 million tonnes per annum by the middle of next year with the commissioning of new plants next year.

“And also, we consolidated our foods businesses across all our divisions: the flour milling; the sugar refinery; the oil milling and what have you. I listed that in January 2022 with that, we have a market capitalisation of over N1trn.

“The cement business total capitalization is about N2trn, hence the reason for Forbes rating. You know Forbes takes cognisance of companies that are listed and they use shares to actually work on people’s net worth.

“Of Course we are doing other things and other businesses that we have not listed like our sugar refinery in Port Harcourt. That is purely for export. It is the only sugar refinery that is a distillation refinery meaning that you process to export to other parts of West Africa. In fact, we just acquired a vessel- MV Bundu for that purpose.”

According to him, his BUA Group will explore the African Continental Free Trade Agreement to build a stronger trade relation with other regional countries.

“The African Continental Free Trade Agreement is a wonderful agreement. A lot of investments that we are having now are actually geared towards taking advantage of the AfCFTA. For example, almost 30 per cent of our cement produced in Sokoto State will be taken into Niger and Chad Republic with zero duty.

“We are only about 120km to 130km from Sokoto to Niger and the road network is very good and we don’t have any issues whatsoever.”

He said if the trans-African highways come onboard, companies from the 54 countries will benefit.