Billionaire businessman, Aliko Dangote has disclosed that he he put all his assets up as collateral and gave a personal guarantee to secure the initial $3.7 billion loan used to finance the Dangote Petroleum Refinery and fertiliser projects.
Dangote stated that the move was the biggest move of his business career.
CityNews reports that Dangote disclosed this in an interview on Arise News.
Asked about the biggest risk he had taken in nearly five decades as an entrepreneur, Dangote pointed immediately to the refinery and fertiliser investments.
“The biggest decision was the risk of the refinery and fertiliser,” he said.
Dangote said financing the projects required him to pledge everything he had built at the time.
“We gave all our assets as collateral.
“And apart from that, I gave a personal guarantee,” he said.
According to Dangote, the initial financing involved a $3.7 billion loan at a time when the eventual scale, cost and completion of the projects were far from certain.
The refinery would eventually cost about $20 billion to build, making it one of the largest private industrial investments undertaken in Africa.
Dangote also said many African entrepreneurs had become “scared to death” of making major industrial investments because of policy uncertainty.
Asked why more wealthy Africans were not taking risks similar to his, he replied: “Everybody is not Aliko, who wants to fight every day.”
“I fight every day, morning, day and night,” Dangote said. “It has become part of me now. I enjoy fighting,” he said.
