Dangote Group is one of the most successful companies in Africa. It has the operational quality and scale to compete and win markets. It is an industrialized conglomerate. And it has one feature every major global conglomerate has: it taxes the economy. I will explain three ways conglomerates tax economies. It is a good thing when you have many of such companies, because at the end, the net effects are always positive.

Conglomerate Tax: Nations

Dangote wants to invest excess of $1 billion in rice farming. It is moving heavily into agriculture and agro-processing deploying its management philosophy which is to vertically integrate any business. So, the vision begins in farms all the way to food processing thereby giving it the opportunity to extract any possible efficiency along the chains. That helps it to set competitive prices, and with its scale, that creates a moat for any competitor to overcome. When it perfects all the value chains, you have nothing left to improve and that means, you cannot find an opening to enter. The rice farming begins from Kogi State, as noted in a newswire Tekedia received.

A multi-million Naira Youth Farming Initiative that will engage teeming unemployed Nigerian graduates in rice farming has been launched by the Dangote Rice Limited in Kogi State. This is even as the Company prepares to hit the market with One million metric tons of Dangote rice in 2018.

The Dangote Youth Rice Farm project, mainly an out-grower scheme for youths only was flagged off at the Lower Niger River Basin Authority, Kampe, Ejiba in Yagba West local government area of the state where youth have embarked on rice cultivation over 100 hectares of land. The rice farm project, which was preceded by a special training for the youth farmers on the dynamics of the rice farming, will see the youths cultivating the rice paddy on a 100 hectares of land, which will then be bought over by the company for processing.

Under the scheme, the Dangote Rice Company provides the seedling, anti-pest-chemicals, and fertilizers while the Basing Authority provided the land for the young farmers.

The Kogi state scheme will be launched in more states soon. As noted in the press release, the Basing Authority will provide the land. That means Dangote Group will not have to pay for it. There is nothing wrong with that. He is investing to provide food security, provide youth employment and also improve the communities. That is what conglomerates do because they are the best creators of jobs, at least in short terms. While the state can plan to sell the land and invest the proceeds in startups, it may take years before those startups can generate the kind of employment and economic activity a conglomerate like Dangote can deliver in a year. For having that capacity, conglomerates tax nations. In other words, you have to subsidize their businesses through government supports for them to help you fix your pain points like unemployment as a government. They operate at the upstream level where the pain points are massive in the operations of governments. Their reward is Conglomerate Tax: the subsidization of their business operations due to their capabilities to help support government initiatives at scale.

Please note that Conglomerate Tax  is a global thing. U.S. government may waive taxes for GE but will not listen to Facebook because GE is a conglomerate. They are treated differently because they technically build nations. Government may have the money but may also need a special plastic for a new warplane. There are few companies that can deliver such products. So, a government may engage a company like GE to research and develop the plastic. The company can ask for concessions to take that risk. Those concessions are taxes to nations since the nations must still buy the plastics if the conglomerate succeeds.

Conglomerate Tax: Businesses

Another way conglomerates tax the economy is through their capacities to exert influence on practically any part of the economy. If you are building a major house, the possibility is that you may be using Dangote Cement. Largely, the conglomerate taxes the construction industry which as they scale and expand, Dangote Cement takes a cut in whatever they are doing because it is the industry-near monopoly in cement. You can also be in bakery, requiring flour from Dangote Flour; as your business empire expands, there is a tax from the industry-leader on your business. There is nothing wrong with that. That is how conglomerates operate. They make critical infrastructure investments which help to unlock values and opportunities in markets. The reward is that they become centrally critical that everyone depends on them to operate.  The implication is that they tax those sectors usually operating at the downstream level of the business.

Companies must develop and accumulate capabilities in order to compete in the market place. In this video, I explain how any firm can do that and why accumulating capability is very strategic. From Google to Dangote Group, when companies accumulate capabilities, they see themselves operating in the segments of markets with higher value (usually upstream) compared with where their competitors operate (usually downstream). Dangote Group can deploy massive assets and technical know-how in cement production, making it harder for new entrants and rivals

Conglomerate Intra-Tax

Interestingly, conglomerates tax themselves also. But that is the brilliance of their business models. Dangote Fertilizer will begin operations next year. Its biggest customer will likely be Dangote Rice which will quickly stop buying fertilizer from other sources to buy in-house. The implication is that Dangote Fertilizer will be a customer to Dangote Rice, removing any market risk associated with external demand. Simply, even if there are no other buyers, Dangote Rice is a ready buyer for Dangote Fertilizer. And as Dangote Rice expands across Africa, Dangote Fertilizer will mimic its trajectory. It can be making 10-20% margin on that business: call it the tax on Dangote Rice.

All Together

For all the talks of startups, the reality is that nations need conglomerates because their sizes help them make critical investments. For example, Dangote Refinery can help fix some challenges in the transportation sector through efficient supply of fuel in the economy. When you have many of them, your economy does better. That means, you have companies with capacities to tackle serious market challenges. Yes, as conglomerates do so, they get huge rewards: they become tax collectors on the economy.

By 2025, I predict that it would be irrelevant which bank your account is domiciled in Nigeria. Nigeria will move into a new era of banking which I will call Open Banking. This banking structure will see a highly integrated system that abstracts out any specific bank where you hold your account.

With the success of the Bank Verification Number (BVN), an interface for all banks and their customer accounts have been created. Technically, what matters now is the BVN and not necessarily where the account is domiciled. If you have an account in Zenith Bank and you want a loan from Paylater, the fintech lender does not really care about the Zenith Bank element provided it can use the BVN data to pull the data it needs from Interswitch and NIBSS (Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System).

So, as we deepen our banking digitalization, bank accounts will become increasingly abstracted out. Even in your bank, they need the BVN more than they need the bank account you maintain with them. This is going to be a golden age for fintech (financial technology) companies as the Central Bank of Nigeria will make it easier for banks to do business with them. There will be minimal practical limitation for CBN-certified fintechs to pull data from banking institutions through BVN.

In United Kingdom, banks are now expected to share the level of current account transactions to third parties like fintech companies and other banks.

A giant change is coming for banking in the UK. Not Brexit, but Open Banking, the new directive that will require the largest UK banks to give third parties access to their data, down to the level of current account transactions. The Open Up Challenge has backed 20 teams who are building apps and services at the forefront of this change with £5M of prize money funded by a number of UK Banks,.

[…]

Launched in February 2017, the Open Up Challenge is intended to inspire the creation of apps and tools for small businesses (SMEs). Along with cash awards, Nesta enticed fintechs by offering access to a huge trove of anonymised SME banking transactions, giving them a chance to experiment with Open Banking-style datasets in advance of the system’s launch.

The advantage for the fintech will be that they will not be responsible in the direct acquisition of these banking customers. They will just have access to them as they make products. Largely, by removing that acquisition cost, fintechs can offer services in cost-competitive formats. This will give them a huge edge over banks on pricing.

Kenya is getting there faster than Nigeria through its MPESA, a mobile money service. Today in Kenya, an MPESA account is more important than a bank account, if one is even needed. You can do all the things that matter in your life for months without a need for a bank account. Increasingly, the banking institution has been abstracted out. The bank accounts for savings and current accounts have limited values in Kenya because MPESA is the bank. Right there, what matters is the phone number.

Nigeria has not gotten there, but moving around Lagos and talking to people, I will be telling my African bank clients to begin to prepare for a future where the focus will shift from just having the bank accounts in-house to building a banking aggregation construct business that makes use of data from anywhere. In other words, aggregating data from other financial institutions to deliver better services at scale and cost-competitively.

Under the aggregation construct, the companies that control the value are not usually the ones that created them. Google News and Facebook control news distribution in Nigeria than Guardian, ThisDay and others. Because the MNCs tech firms “own” the audience and the customers, the advertisers focus on them, hoping to reach the readers through them. Just like that, the news creators have been systematically sidelined as they earn lesser and lesser from their works. But the aggregators like Facebook and Google smile to the bank. The reason why this happens is because of the abundance which Internet makes possible. Everyone has access to more users but that does not correlate to more revenue because the money goes to people that can help simplify the experiences to the users who will not prefer to be visiting all the news site to get any information they want. They go to Google and search and then Google takes them to the website in Nigeria with the information. Advertisers understand the value created is now with Google which simplifies that process.

Yes, banks must begin the transition of thinking less on how many bank customers they have to one that focuses on how they can aggregate what is out there to build a business at scale using the aggregated data. Just as Google may not care about the number of websites it owns by focusing on data it can aggregate from millions of websites to deliver better search results to people, Nigerian banks must evolve to the era of aggregation open banking. Your lending strategy has to change and as we see companies like Interswitch redesign their businesses, it will not take long for massive fragmentation that only banks built on aggregation can exploit. I see Konga and Jumia as future banks. If they get CBN certifications (Konga through Konga Pay has one), they can pull NIBSS data and offer lending services to merchants in their networks. Amazon, the global ecommerce giant makes more than $1 billion of loans yearly to merchants in its platform. If Konga and Jumia begin to make loans, banks will continue to lose customers.

All Together

Nigerian banking will change by 2025. The structure of our economy and the capacity to transfer money instantly will have many implications in the industry. For any bank to win, it will have to find a way to become a digital hub using the constructs of aggregation to compete. Your number of customers is irrelevant. What matters now is how efficiently you can curate the millions of accounts in the ecosystem under an emerging open banking framework. Building those structures must begin now because as blockchain makes itself into the banking architectures, the whole thinking of a bank brand will die.

By practically removing most banking frictions, blockchain through the web, will make every bank to have the same level of footage because there is no further efficiency to be optimized since there is zero friction to begin with. If Bank A offers the same quality of service as Bank B, the brand advantages will erode. That brings the commoditization of banking thereby facilitating the aggregated-based era of open banking. Now is the time to plan for this emerging redesign in the sector.

On October 14, 2017, Mr. Tony Elumelu, the Founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, and the Chairman of both Heirs Holdings and United Bank for Africa Plc, addressed entrepreneurs, policymakers and other shareholders during the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Forum. The Forum is a key component of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program (TEEP) which selects 1,000 African entrepreneurs and supports them with a combined $10 million as part of building entrepreneurial ecosystems in Africa. Mr. Elumelu had committed $100 million over ten years for TEEP.

He spoke before more than 1,300 entrepreneurs including alumni of TEEP, Vice President of Nigeria, governors, ministers and representatives of corporate entities.  The key thrust of the talk was the Africapitalism which is an investment philosophy he has pioneered globally.

In this piece, I will summarize his presentation which I listened live in the Nigerian Law School auditorium, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Preamble

Before we go into Mr. Elumelu’s presentation on Saturday, I will like you to read the basis of his talk by understanding the vision that drives the Foundation and TEEP. This will give you a good perspective as I summarize and analyze his presentation.

As an entrepreneur myself, I understand what it feels like to yearn for a lifeline, to hope for a ‘big break’, to look forward to enjoying some luck.

In 2010, we launched the Tony Elumelu Foundation to spur our continent’s development through entrepreneurship and competitiveness.

As an entrepreneur myself, I understand what it feels like to yearn for a lifeline, to hope for a ‘big break’, to look forward to enjoying some luck. As a matter of fact, part of my own success is owed to someone that believed in me, and was prepared to invest in my talents and take a bet on my future.

It is for this reason that I developed the economic philosophy of Africapitalism, which positions Africa’s private sector and most importantly entrepreneurs, as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the continent. Based on this guiding philosophy, we have launched successful programmes and forged meaningful partnerships with stakeholders across the globe.

In 2015, I heralded the ‘Decade of the African Entrepreneur’ by committing $100 million, to the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme – the first of its kind and scale in Africa. Since then, our alumni – across all 54 African countries – have begun growing businesses and improving lives, contributing to our goal of empowering 10,000 entrepreneurs who will collectively create one million jobs and generate $10 billion in revenue.

We are committed to giving from the perspective of empowering the recipient, rather than making them dependent on us, because prosperity is assured only when ALL Africans are financially independent. My vision for the Foundation is to unlock the obstacles that Africa’s entrepreneurs face, so that they, rather than aid agencies or governments will spur the continent’s transformation.

At the end of our 10-year commitment, thousands of businesses will grow and flourish, driving sustainable prosperity across Africa. This is my vision. I invite you ALL to learn about what the Foundation does, what we hope to do and to discover what we can do together. In doing so, I am confident that we will achieve sustainable development in Africa.

That is indeed this summary. But I hope you can read on.

The Africa Challenge

Mr Elumelu began his presentation by acknowledging King Ebitimi Banigo, the king of the Okpoama region in Nigeria’s Niger delta. King Banigo had owned a bank which Mr Elumelu worked. Tony used the moment to show appreciation for the opportunity his mentor provided to him. It was a very fascinating moment in the auditorium.

Then he began his presentation by examining the challenges African youth face today with dwindling job opportunities. He noted that youth need jobs. With jobs, they will not be leaving the continent. Jobs will reduce the mindless deaths in the seas as many young Africans migrate to Europe and other places. He also noted that with opportunities at home, these young people will not be selling their organs just to survive.  He made a case that Africa needs hope.  That hope will reduce vices and crises that precipitated to the Arab Spring which saw upheavals in most parts of Northern Africa. Opportunities will solve the problem of human trafficking and restore the dignity of our citizens.

The Development Paradigms

Mr. Elumelu noted that African governments and their largely foreign development partners have been working for years to provide roadmaps that can help provide the opportunities for our young people. These entities have tried many models and initiatives but the impacts have been marginal.  The lack of opportunities remains because the solutions offered have not been extremely successful. He noted that about $500 billion has been spent through different programs by development partners and yet at the end, the African youth remain with limited hope. Largely, the efficiency in the deployment of the capital has not been stellar. So, he pushed that the world needs to rethink how it is engaging in the development of the African continent.

He has an answer: the Africapitalism through vehicles like TEEP. TEEP offers a new development model in Africa, built and organized around young people under market-driven forces.

A New Model – Africapitalism /TEEP

Tony is the father of Africapitalism, an economic philosophy which “positions Africa’s private sector and most importantly entrepreneurs, as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the continent”. His vision is that he can build a vehicle to use business to seed a new Africa where entrepreneurs will create jobs and prosperities in the continent.  By empowering these young entrepreneurs, their businesses will grow and over time, they will have places people can find jobs to earn decent livelihoods.  It is a virtuous circle that the entrepreneurs supported by the Foundation will blossom providing opportunities in their local African communities. Those communities will progress and the welfare of the citizens accelerated. The impact will be that hopelessness will be replaced with hope across many African communities. Simply, TEEP wants to accomplish the following:

• Unlock potentials in young Africans
• Overcome hopelessness in the land through economic prosperity

Examining the TEEP Development Model

The core of the TEEP Development Model is anchored on free enterprise. It is based on the construct that the path that will fix Africa will go through the private sector and young African entrepreneurs are going to be the catalysts to that growth and development paradigms. TEEP does believe that by investing directly in the young Africans, it can have more catalytic impacts across African communities if the entrepreneurs are fixing and improving challenges in their places through markets.

Mr Elumelu noted that entrepreneurs and markets can redesign Africa. He noted these key facts:

• Steve Jobs started Apple. Apple has a market capitalization in excess of $800 billion with cash reserves of about $300 billion
• Bill Gates started Microsoft. Microsoft has a market capitalization of nearly $600 billion
• Jack Ma started Alibaba. Alibaba has a market capitalization of nearly $460 billion

When these companies are compared with a big country like Nigeria, the point becomes obvious that entrepreneurs can have huge impacts beyond whatever government can do. Nigeria’s foreign reserve is a paltry $35 billion, far below what a technology company has in its bank account. Mr. Elumelu sees this as a reason why the use of markets to accelerate development will have more impacts than what most developmental organizations are doing.

Key Elements and Factors for Success

As he explained the nexus of the TEEP program, he noted three core elements for the African entrepreneurs to triumph:

• Ingenuity
• Creativity
• Passion

Mr. Elumelu noted the following as factors for success which entrepreneurs with the above noted key elements will need to succeed:

• Operating Environment: The operating environment deals with the whole nexus of legal, infrastructure, policy and other enablers and anchors that can help organizations thrive. African entrepreneurs need those for them to compete effectively in an increasingly globalizing world. He also noted that within these operating environments, there are inhibitors like negligence of the needs of entrepreneurs by policymakers, lack of meritocracy, and problem of entitlement mentality.
• Transmission Mechanism: Here, entrepreneurs will need to have the ability to effectively transmit ideas into products and services. In other words, they need to take action besides any idea they may have. And when that action is taken, it needs to lead to products and services which markets want.

The Peerless Philanthropist

Mr Elumelu noted that only Africans will develop Africa. He explained that luck should be democratized through the institutionalization of pillars which can help build businesses. He made a reference that Steve Jobs might have died with his ideas. But America did the right thing by making it possible for him to impact his world through structures and catalysts made possible in that nation. Africa needs to find ways to support its innovators.

According to him, he is leaving a legacy and every African should aspire to do something. Our strength is the legacy we leave behind and not the size of our bank accounts. That passion is the motivation for the $100 million commitment to stimulate an entrepreneurial ecosystem in Africa through the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs.  The program is sector agnostic and extremely competitive with only 1,000 accepted this year out of excess of 98,000 that began the application. (Disclosure: I am one of the selection committee members.)

He concluded by making a case that we need to transform Africa to ensure that poverty is eliminated. Otherwise, there is a huge risk that our continent can be gone if our youth continue to struggle with lack of opportunities. We want a future with unbounded opportunities in the continent and he challenged Africans to commit to build our continent since “no one but us will develop Africa”.