As DJ Khaled careers through the midday traffic clogging New York&#8217;s Columbus Circle &#8211; one hand on the wheel of a black Rolls-Royce Dawn convertible, the other raising an iPhone to stream his exploits via Snapchat &#8211; he lays out the aggressively optimistic, blustery, motivational, tautological and oddly compelling philosophy that guides his vehicular preferences and his life in general.
&#8220;You can want a Hyundai, if that&#8217;s what you want. Me, I want a Rolls-Royce,&#8221; he explains. &#8220;I want the drop-top Dawn. I want a Wraith with stars on the roof. I want Phantoms with footrests to massage my toes. That&#8217;s what I want, and that&#8217;s because we the best.&#8221;
As the car pulls up to a stoplight, Khaled looks back at his phone. &#8220;Forbes magazine wants to talk to Billy,&#8221; he enthuses, using his latest self-assigned nickname, meant to signal his billionaire ambitions and music-chart prowess. &#8220;Billboard Billy!&#8221;
I gently note that the light has turned green.
&#8220;I was ready, my brother, I was ready,&#8221; he says, lowering his phone. &#8220;So where we going?&#8221;
He already knows, of course. We&#8217;re off to go car shopping at the Porsche and Bugatti dealerships a little farther downtown. Khaled&#8217;s career, meanwhile, is going the opposite direction: all the way up. His last two albums, Major Key, in 2016, and this year&#8217;s Grateful, have both gone to No. 1, thanks to collaborations with Drake, Rihanna and Justin Bieber. He also owns several businesses named after his We the Best catchphrase, including a record label, a publishing company and a headphone line. He collects six-figure nightly fees for DJ gigs and millions more from deals with Mentos, Champ Sports, Apple and other brands -arranged by himself and Jay-Z, who signed on as his manager last year after seeing Khaled become a social media superstar with more than 15 million followers across Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter.
&#8220;What we are seeing from Khaled now is really who he is; the cameras are just capturing his natural state,&#8221; Jay-Z wrote in a section of Khaled&#8217;s new bestselling book, The Keys. &#8220;That&#8217;s why the world is so drawn to him.&#8221;
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With that success comes scads of cash &#8211; $24 million over the past 12 months alone &#8211; more than enough to nurture his Rolls-Royce habit. Khaled&#8217;s collection, spread across homes in Los Angeles and Miami, includes a 2017 convertible Dawn like the one he&#8217;s piloting today (&#8220;I always want to feel like I&#8217;m at home&#8221;), a 2017 Arabian-blue Wraith coupe (&#8220;It&#8217;s my everyday car&#8221;), a 2016 metallic-black Ghost sedan (&#8220;I sit in the back seat&#8230; that&#8217;s when I&#8217;m my business&#8221;) and the recently unveiled $430,000 Phantom VIII, which claims to have the &#8220;most silent&#8221; interior of any car in the world (&#8220;I&#8217;m gonna be one of the first to get it,&#8221; Khaled says proudly).
&#8220;What I love about Rolls-Royce is, you look at me, it&#8217;s like you&#8217;re looking at a Rolls-Royce,&#8221; says the bearded, barrel-chested 41-year-old Khaled. &#8220;It&#8217;s just powerful; it&#8217;s smooth; it&#8217;s iconic.&#8221;
It&#8217;s that sort of unbridled self-assurance that has fueled his steady rise and enabled his late-blooming trajectory. Born Khaled Mohamed Khaled in 1975 to Palestinian immigrants in New Orleans, he grew up in Florida, where he started DJ&#8217;ing and selling mixtapes as a teenager. Employing the fake-it-till-you-make-it ethos often celebrated in the hip-hop world, he made a down payment on a new $30,000 red BMW M3 in 1991, tricking it out with a state-of-the-art speaker system.
One day, Khaled was cruising around Miami when he started to smell smoke. He pulled over and got out of the car, thinking one of his amps might have blown. It was a good thing he did: The car soon caught on fire, he says as we weave through midtown in the Dawn. (&#8220;DJ Khaled, we the best, baby!&#8221; screams a passerby. &#8220;That&#8217;s right, we the best!&#8221; he replies, barely interrupting the flow of his story.) &#8220;The car blew up,&#8221; he continues. &#8220;No lie. Like a movie.&#8221;
For his next car purchase, Khaled scaled back considerably, buying a used Honda Civic for about $12,000. By 1995, he was gaining traction as a DJ and producer, opening for legends like Notorious B.I.G. and Nas, and he soon got himself back into an M3 &#8211; this time a blue one. &#8220;Even if I couldn&#8217;t make the payment, I just had the mentality &#8211; I gotta be in that whip,&#8221; he says. &#8220;Image is everything.&#8221;
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For Khaled, that meant retiring cringeworthy aliases like Terror Squadian and Arab Attack and settling on his current nom de DJ. After hosting radio shows in Miami in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he released his first solo record, Listennn &#8230; the Album, in 2006, featuring appearances by stars such as Lil Wayne, Kanye West and John Legend. The album underscored Khaled&#8217;s primary talent &#8211; not singing, rapping or even producing, but bringing together an ensemble cast of popular performers &#8211; and went to No. 12 on the charts.
Khaled celebrated by buying a Bentley coupe and then almost immediately upgraded to a baby blue Rolls-Royce Phantom, which cost him $400,000. He supported his new hobby by churning out platinum singles such as the 2010 earworm &#8220;All I Do Is Win,&#8221; which featured T-Pain, Snoop Dogg, Ludacris and Rick Ross.
&#8220;My Phantom was the hottest Phantom in the game,&#8221; he says. &#8220;After that, I didn&#8217;t stop. I&#8217;ve been Rolls-Royce ever since.&#8221;
<div id="attachment_33854" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33854" class=" wp-image-33854" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/DJ-Khaled-and-son-e1507883409850-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" />DJ Khaled sits in the back seat of one of his three Rolls Royces with his son Asahd. (Photo by Ethan Pines for Forbes)</div>
Khaled says the reason he loves the brand is that he feels equally comfortable driving or being driven in a Rolls; he usually has a driver operate his Ghost and pilots the Wraith himself. And, yes, there are stars on the ceiling; contrary to popular belief, it&#8217;s a standard option, not a custom request.
While some ultraluxury brands have alienated hip-hop&#8217;s new elite (in 2006, one of the executives behind Cristal champagne famously told The Economist, &#8220;What can we do? We can&#8217;t forbid people from buying it,&#8221; prompting a Jay-Z boycott), Rolls-Royce has wisely embraced its popularity among rap stars. The company sometimes provides Khaled with vehicles when he&#8217;s traveling for high-profile events, and Rolls has been rewarded with product placement in his videos and social media feeds.
&#8220;He&#8217;s an enthusiastic, evangelical Rolls-Royce owner,&#8221; says Gerry Spahn, head of communications for the Americas at Rolls-Royce, &#8220;and we&#8217;re thrilled that he wants to be associated with the best of the best.&#8221;
If Khaled&#8217;s automotive preference isn&#8217;t clear from the composition of his collection (his only luxury cars without a Flying Lady on the hood: a Cadillac Escalade and a Range Rover), he makes it clear as we pull up to the Bugatti dealership. He refuses to go inside, despite the fact that we&#8217;d planned test-drives ahead of time. (&#8220;I&#8217;d rather be in a Rolls.&#8221;) After some prodding, he agrees to visit the Porsche showroom next door.
Upon entering, I ask Khaled what he thinks of the mahogany Cayenne E-Hybrid SUV on display. &#8220;What&#8217;s that?&#8221; he inquires. I point to the vehicle next to him and explain that its motor is powered by both gasoline and electricity. His response: &#8220;I don&#8217;t know nothing about it.&#8221; We stroll through the showroom, shifting gazes from a gleaming Panamera 4 sedan to a lean Macan GTS SUV to a menacing 911 GT3 that goes from 0-60 in 3.2 seconds. But he doesn&#8217;t even want to go for a test-drive.
&#8220;I&#8217;m a big boy,&#8221; he says. &#8220;That interior got to be fit for a big boy, you know what I&#8217;m saying? &#8230; Maybe you should buy me one, and I&#8217;ll tell you how I like it after that.&#8221;
The only car Khaled really wants is the one he&#8217;s already ordered: the new Phantom, redesigned for only the eighth time since its debut in 1925. The mansion-on-wheels comes with a 7.5-liter, 563-hp, V12 twin-turbo engine, Eames-chair-inspired seats and even a dashboard &#8220;gallery&#8221; designed to accommodate slivers of bespoke artwork.
For DJ Khaled, though, it&#8217;s not just the physical appointments that inspire his loyalty to Rolls-Royce. The company impressed him, he explains, by sending him a free Rolls-branded child seat when his son, Asahd, was born last winter.
&#8220;When he turns 16,&#8221; Khaled says, &#8220;I&#8217;m getting him a Rolls-Royce out the gate.&#8221; &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Zack O&#8217;Malley Greenburg</a>, FORBES STAFF

How DJ Khaled Rolls: Hip-Hop’s Boldest Star Shows Off His Major Keys

They are new, blue and as powerful as eight Ferraris; these are the 232 train engines to be built by Rolls-Royce’s MTU South Africa (MTU SA) ready to roll out of Cape Town in South Africa and onto Africa’s railways.
“There are 7.2 billion people in the world, just in Africa, in 2010, we had estimates of 1 billion. By 2040, it will be double. By 2030, we will already need 50% more energy, 40% more water and 30% more food. How will you transport all that? We’re going to see mega cities especially in Asia and Africa. We need power and we need fuel efficiency and this is where rail comes in.”
So says Andrea Nono, CEO of MTU SA, at their refurbished offices in Montague Gardens, Cape Town. Here, MTU SA forked out R50 million ($3.53 million) to upgrade their factory to lay the foundation for expansion into Africa; their next big target.
“The message is simple and clear. We are changing Africa and hope to make a positive difference. It is a big moment for local manufacturing in South Africa. Let’s not forget the successes and the success stories. It is huge that an international company has been localized.”
It means MTU SA can now assemble, test and paint engines destined for anything from warships to mine trucks. The 232 engines are destined for Durban and run at a powerful 3,300kW and weigh 9.7 tonnes. This makes them lighter and cheaper than the Ferraris, jokes Nono.
<div id="attachment_32116" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32116" class="wp-image-32116 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/MTU_JC-8-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MTU_JC-8.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MTU_JC-8-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MTU_JC-8-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/MTU_JC-8-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Andrea Nono and a completed engine</div>
The engines come straight out of a £1.2billion investment into research and development made by Rolls-Royce in 2015, a business worth £76.4 billion.
One of those working on the engines is Pamela Tebogo Maphanga, a technician at MTU SA.
Maphanga, remarkably, grew up in Zebediela, a small rural area in Limpopo, without any electricity at all.
“I was very young. The fact that you could switch on a stove, it was something so amazing. There was no electricity, so we used to go into the field, get wood, make fire and then cook and cook. I had to fetch water because there were no taps,” she says.
“Everyone at my house, my mom, my aunties they are all nurses. I said no I wasn’t going to be a nurse. It has to stop somewhere.”
The 30-year-old Maphanga, started here as an apprentice and worked her way up. She is now an electrical technician as well as dyno tester, responsible for testing the fleet.
“It makes a huge noise when the engine is running. No one is allowed to go in.”
Maphanga also knows too well South Africa’s overburdened train system having had to take them while studying at college in Pretoria.
“The fun of running for a train, that excitement, always when you go home you run for the train going back after college you have to run for the train. I know them very well. The trucks [transporting goods that should be on trains] mess up our roads, they are too heavy for them.”
In 10 years’ time, Maphanga sees herself as a manager and wants to make a change.
“We need more women. I’ve proved that it can be done. April is going to be my fifth year being at MTU. There’s been a couple of challenges, that I’ve overcome. But I am here now and proud to be part of this male-dominated workplace. I am showing them how to do it. Especially since now I am a technician. I’ve grown, I used to be this shy little girl, now I’ve grown up and even have my own small project that I am working on,” says Maphanga.
These days, Maphanga doesn’t even notice the smell of diesel and grease on her overalls, even though the people she comes across when walking home from work do.
“It gets so normal it’s part of the daily bread. There are women and men stopping me on the side of the street asking where I work. They ask me how did I get here. They’ve got their own daughters who want to go to college and get here. To be like me.
“When I [started], everything was hard. Everything was too big for me, everything was too difficult for me, but I fought and fought. I asked questions when I didn’t understand and I learned.”
On this day, Maphanga’s story leaves as large an impression as the massive white engine, still to be painted in the fashion forward MTU blue, she stands behind. Like Maphanga, the boss Nono, also started working as an apprentice.
“I’ve been in this industry for almost 20 years. I grew up in it. For me personally, it’s great to actually have the impact as CEO having the liberty and pushing the diversity agenda even more in the business. The means also giving women the chance to shine in this industry even more,” says Nono.
MTU SA estimates there are 120,000 industrial engines in Africa alone, leaving plenty of work for the factory once the rail engines are complete.
Two women whose lives have changed thanks to engines that are more powerful than Ferraris and will certainly carry more goods than can fit into their boots.

MTU_JC-1

The Smell Of Diesel,  Grease And Success

It is 8PM on a warm Friday night at Eko Hotel in Victoria Island in Nigeria and a $480,000, white Rolls-Royce screeches to a halt. A 2015 red Lamborghini Aventador, with a retail price of $548,800, follows it shortly, revving its engine before joining an array of black Mercedes G Classes, which elegantly litter the parking lot.
Victoria Island is the wealthiest district of Lagos and home to one of the biggest congregations of millionaires in the world. Theo Tiemessen, Manager at the plush Eko Signature hotel, says these millionaires are demanding customers.
“They have good taste and they are willing to pay for good meals and fresh products,” he says.
Around 80% of the guests at Eko Signature come from outside the hotel. The customers are predominantly top government and banking officials who use the hotel for their meetings. Specialist businesses have sprung up to cater for the particular needs of this affluent group.
“We had guests in the hotel once who asked for camel milk for their infant child, they would not take anything else,” says Tiemessen.
Ultra high net worth individuals (UHNWIs) are classified by having liquid assets worth more than $5 million. The number of UHNWIs in Africa will increase by a staggering 59% over the next 10 years, according to the Wealth Report 2015 and Nigeria will have one of the highest growth rates in UHNWIs over the next decade.
Aderemi Ajidahun is the CEO of Hole19 Group, which specializes in providing luxury retail products to the rich. The group’s flagship brand is Zakaa, a retailer of luxury brands such as Brioni, Angelo Galasso and Maurice Lacroix.
“Our clients are mostly extravagant spenders with a unique taste. They only want the best and the most unique timepieces which cannot be found in any other shops,” says Ajidahun.
Last year, Ajidahun sold one of those timepieces for a staggering $250,000. His showroom in Maitama, an exclusive district in Abuja, caters to the wealthiest.
“Our female clients usually only want the pieces they have seen on the runway and it is our job to make sure that they have them,” says Ajidahun.
Kunle Bello runs Platinum Concierge, a company that provides specialty services for the affluent in Mayfair, one of London’s wealthiest areas. A lot of his clients are wealthy Nigerians.
“We provide services that cater to the needs of UHNWIs. Our services range from organizing exclusive parties, catering, booking holiday packages, property and whatever the client needs,” says Bello.
The number of Nigerians buying luxury properties in Britain has risen sharply since Bello started his business three years ago.
“Two months ago, I sold a property to an oil entrepreneur for just over $6 million,” he says.
The super-rich travel in style and have private jets waiting for them at airports. Nigeria is currently the largest market in Africa for Bombardier.
“Average flight time an hour costs about $8,000 for those who do not own their own jets but still want to travel in style,” says Bello.
Those who can afford their own planes will have to part with $25 million to $65 million for a new Gulfstream. Around 1,200 private jets land at Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos every month.
“It costs upwards of $4 million a year to maintain a private jet with two fulltime captains and a flight attendant on standby, in addition to related airport handling services,” says Bello.
Despite tough economic times, it seems Nigeria’s rich are able to maintain their lavish lifestyles.

The Rich Get All The Camel Milk And Jets They Need

London could be Nigeria’s 37th state. From the underground to the finest hotels, you can hear an army of Nigerians on the march. There is an attitude about them – forward thinking, money spending – a force steeling Britain’s economy with streetwise Lagos cut-and-thrust. Be it academia, business, or just plain rich, there is plenty of Nigeria to go around in London. One of the best known is the Nigerian billionaire, Femi Otedola, who owns a $53.5-million home in the heart of rich Knightsbridge.
Otedola, the man who always wears white, clearly doesn’t believe in doing things by half. He owns a fleet of custom Rolls Royce cars in London and a Mercedes fleet in Nigeria, together worth $7.7 million. On the waters off Lagos, he has a sleek, custom-made, $19.5-million yacht in the Victoria Island lagoon. His home in Lagos is bigger than the one in Knightsbridge, with more expansive balconies and better weather.
Be it homes, gadgets or cars; Otedola appears to love the good life and doesn’t mind spending on it.
On a Thursday morning, in his tastefully furnished London pad adorned with family portraits, we meet for a chat; Otedola is jolly, answering phone calls and checking stocks on his tablet. He does this every morning after a few hours in the gym. There is no doubt it has been another prosperous year for the chairman of a leading Nigerian downstream oil company.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3199" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/W0A9934-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
Otedola was the second Nigerian to make the FORBES billionaires list in 2009. Following a major plunge in the shares of African Petroleum (now Forte Oil), he fell off the list. Another blow came when he topped the list of Nigeria’s debtors – owing banks around $900 million. Otedola has since reshuffled his finances and paid off every cent, according to the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON). He returns to the FORBES rich list in 2014 wealthier and wiser. He is worth at least $1.2 billion, as valued this year by the FORBES wealth unit in the United States and FORBES AFRICA. The rise in net worth was helped by a spike in the share price of his company, Forte Oil where he owns an 80% shareholding.
Otedola is part of a group of relatively young men who represent the new face of Nigerian capitalism. Born around the sixties and seventies, they came of age in the eighties and nineties as Nigeria inched deeper into military dictatorships that crippled the economy and the ambitions of entrepreneurs. They had to wait until the return of democracy in 1999 – and the subsequent opening up of the economy – to unleash their entrepreneurial skills. They have since taken advantage of the upturn in the country’s fortunes; their rise coinciding with waves of Nigeria’s economic reform.
So, how do you run up $1.5 billion in debt and become solvent in a few years? Just ask Otedola, who believes it was something he had to go through that had an echo in his childhood.
“I had my first business at the age of six. It was called FEMCO. I’d offer to groom my parents’ guests’ nails. Then, write a receipt and charge them for my service. They paid me too. I always had an interest in business. For my seventh Christmas present, I remember asking my dad for a briefcase. I just thought it was a good look. He gave me one of his and I insisted on taking it to school with me. The kids laughed at me, but I still loved the briefcase.”
Down the years, Otedola nursed his passion and grew up to work for his late father, Michael Otedola, the former governor of Lagos State.
It was a career that began with inky fingers. Otedola ran the marketing side of the family printing press in the late 1980s. It was a springboard to becoming a name in the world of Nigerian business.
An insight into the way Otedola’s mind worked came years later in a very public feud with his now best friend and one-time business partner, Aliko Dangote – the richest man in Africa. The squabble was over a bid for the Nigerian arm of Chevron, Texaco’s downstream business, which the company put up for sale in 2006. Otedola – the oil-and-gas man and second largest shareholder in Texaco at the time – was beaten to it by a company with links to Dangote, the cement-and-commodities man; a move said to be in violation of a gentleman’s agreement to respect each other’s turf. When Otedola announced that he would be investing in sugar and cement factories – Dangote territory – few missed the dig in the ribs.
The squabble lingered, but the storm passed, leaving the two men closer than brothers. A nautical manifestation of this is their identical yachts that bob side-by-side in the lagoon off Lagos.
“It was a case of conspiracy theories. Aliko and I have a genuine relationship and it was only natural that we had a few differences along the line. Today, he is my mentor. I like his sincerity and integrity. Aliko’s word is his bond and I have a lot of respect for my friend. I believe he is a real blessing to Nigeria and Africa as a whole. He is a godsend to this continent. I believe Aliko is highly underrated too. He will become the richest man on the FORBES list someday,” says Otedola.
<div id="attachment_3200" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3200" class="size-medium wp-image-3200" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/000_Par1412570-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />TO GO WITH AFP STORY IN FRENCH BY JACQUES LHUILLERY ******Nigeria-économie-énergie-société-politique*** (FILES) File picture of Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote (L) and Femi Otedola are pictured during the opening of the second Lagos domestic airport MM2, 7 April, 2007. Aliko Dangote said that he is far more wealthier than US TV anchorwoman Oprah Winfrey which US magazine Forbes said her wealth fetches USD 1,5 billion. AFP PHOTO / PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/FILES</div>
Otedola’s foray into the oil business began after he stopped working for his father and started working for himself.
Being the son of a governor, Otedola had friends in government who supplied him with diesel. Friends that didn’t do his business any harm down the years. When the political climate changed, the supply stopped. He made enquiries and approached a company for fresh supplies of diesel.
The light bulb in his head went off when Otedola saw a clanking, broken-down truck deliver supplies to his house three days after placing the order. He decided to open his own, more efficient, diesel supply business.
“I started buying diesel from a guy who had control of the market for retailing. I soon realized that a lot of companies in the country actually used diesel. I once received an order from a big transport company. The banks were closed and I could only offer a cheque. I was my supplier’s biggest customer but he refused to take a cheque from me. I immediately realized I needed to source alternative methods of getting my diesel.”
With outrageous ambition, Otedola approached the new management of the depot, which was worth $4 million, and offered to buy it for $20 million.
“I contacted Zenith Bank, sold my pitch on the venture and how we would finance it. I had a meeting that barely lasted 10 minutes with Jim Ovia (another billionaire on the FORBES rich list); he believed in me and it was a done deal. This was in 2003.”
Soon, Otedola had full control of the diesel supply infrastructure with his company, Zenon Petroleum and Gas Limited, holding 91% of the market. It turned out to be a great business decision. He set up a transport and shipping company in line with the logistics attached with diesel supply – F.O. Transport and Seaforce Shipping. At a stroke, he took control of the entire chain. He went further to diversify into property and buying into a string of other large companies. He was 35; he felt the adrenalin rush and wanted to dominate the market. All this in a mere seven years.
At this point, Otedola’s biggest competitors were oil giants Total and Mobil. Soon, he was setting the diesel price and supplying his competitors.
“While my competitors were sleeping, I was busy strategizing. I was liberal too. My strategy was: high volumes, little margins. I was very excited at this point. However, I knew that at some point the government would fix the power issue (diesel is mainly used for generators during power cuts) and I needed to move a step forward.”
In what proved a wise move to cushion the business, Zenon bought a 28.7% stake in African Petroleum. Zenon invested aggressively across the financial sector becoming the second largest shareholder in Zenith Bank, largest individual shareholder at United Bank for Africa (UBA) and many more banks in Nigeria. As the banks sought share capital, following a new directive from the reserve bank, many approached Otedola. He rolled the dice in the knowledge he was playing safe.
At that time, Zenon was very solvent and the largest diesel importer in Nigeria. It invested a lot of money in African Petroleum with Otedola increasing the shareholding from 28.7% to about 55%, at a cost of $400 million. Then, the worst happened – the crude oil prices plunged from $146 to $36 in 2008.
“We took a very big hit and I lost about $1.5 billion, plus interest, in the process. When the oil prices were dropping, I saw it all coming. I could see myself losing big money. I had diesel worth $400 million on the high seas. It didn’t look good. I’m a capitalist though. It was great while the money was rolling in. Now that I lost so much, it was also time to face the tune. It was a very low time for me and I explored different options, including suicide, but ultimately, I knew I had to solve this problem. My debts had to be paid.”
“The same banks that had once sent pretty sales ladies to get money from me for their accounts in the past were now sending tough looking men to knock at my door to get me to pay my debts in the mornings. The only people I’d credit at this point were my wife for her great support, Jim Ovia of Zenith Bank and Segun Agbaje of Guaranty Trust Bank who understood the situation and offered a restructure of the loans for ease of payment. I was however determined to pay it all up and move on. The banks sold the debt to Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria. It was a total of N200 billion
($1.2 billion).”
Otedola separated his personal fortune from his business, so Zenon was bankrupt but he wasn’t. AMCON bought the debt for $867 million. They valued the Zenon assets, Otedola’s property company and existing assets. He added some cash and there was a court settlement. He had also started selling his bank shares, before the big plunge. It dragged on for four years.
“The most important lesson I learned, is that no one is invincible. No matter how high up there you are today, you can lose it all tomorrow if you’re not on top of your game. I also learned that being a good entrepreneur does not necessarily make you a good business manager. I learned to keep my hands off managing and leave it in the hands of experts.”
Today, Otedola describes his approach to business as very risk averse and content. Having sold all the Zenon assets to pay his debts, he shifted his focus to African Petroleum which had to go through restructuring.
Otedola’s fingers were burned and he was going to be tougher this time around. In 2011, a complete overhaul saw him sack all staff at African Petroleum, albeit with a handsome severance package. In the restructuring, African Petroleum became Forte Oil.
“I also made a decision not to run the business as I had failed at running it well. I then brought in a crop of fresh young talented guys to take over. I wanted fresh, brilliant minds and ideas. I wanted to build an institution based on the best corporate governance practices; a whole new direction.”
Forte Oil owns about 500 retail outlets across the 36 states of Nigeria. Its audited half year 2014 results show growth. Its revenue grew by 33% to $511.18 million as against the $385.03 million in 2013. Contributing significantly to revenue, for the first time, is the company’s power generation segment from Amperion Power. Under Nigeria’s power privatization program, it acquired the 414MW Geregu plant in Kogi State. Overall sales costs increased by 30% to $453.39 million from $348.20 million in 2013. Gross profit surged by 57% to $57.79 million from $36.82 million while profit before tax grew by 152% to $26.92 million from $10.68 million.
Alongside recovery in underlying business performance, exposure to the power sector acted as a catalyst for a rise in the share price at Forte Oil. The company has aggressive ambitions and is on the brink of a big deal.
On returning to the FORBES list, Otedola says: “It is good to be back and is simply an indication of how well we are doing.”
On family, he says: “I’m extremely dedicated to my family. They come first at all times.”
Speaking of family, Otedola’s daughter is on the way up through turntables rather than oil barrels. Florence Otedola, one of four children who is also known as ‘DJ Cuppy’, plays and produces music on the dance floors and flies around the world to spin the tunes.
“Cuppy is a very smart young lady who will go places. She has done very well and is currently in the United States for her Master’s program. She is very talented at her DJing. It is her passion and I have no choice but to support her. I want my children to follow their respective passion and I’ll support them to the best of my ability.”
Otedola believes Nigerians are enterprising and therein lies the country’s strength. He detests the bad light in which Nigeria is often seen and hopes for fairer reporting that celebrates its successes as well.
“I’d like to see a Nigeria with about 50 Dangotes,” he says on Nigeria’s future.
As the FORBES list welcomes Otedola back, he is looking towards a brighter future and increasing his $1.2-billion wealth. He may have made a small slice of FORBES history by making a billion, losing it and clawing it back. Either way, he is burned, humbled and bouncing back – w

“You Can Lose It All Tomorrow”

A giant tobacco leaf carving greets visitors to Boka Tobacco Auction Floors, a few kilometers outside Harare city center, along the road to the Beitbridge border with South Africa. Carved by sculptor Dominic Benhura, the towering tobacco leaf is an embodiment of the past and present of the biggest tobacco auction floors in Africa.
The tobacco auction floor is part of a diverse business empire that was built by Roger Boka, one of Zimbabwe’s most controversial and successful black businessmen. Rudo Boka, the eldest of seven children, has been the CEO of Boka Tobacco Auction Floors since 2011, but only after an acrimonious battle to have the family inherit their father’s business, after he died onboard a private jet in February 1999. The 54-year-old was returning from the United States, where he had undergone treatment after a lengthy illness.
He is said to have been the first black Zimbabwean to own a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce and was no stranger to controversy. At the time of his death, he was under investigation by the central bank for alleged money laundering. For 34-year-old Rudo Boka, and her siblings, who are co-shareholders, it has been a bumpy ride. Growing up, they had no interest in his business empire, which spans gold and chrome mining, agriculture, transport and construction. Rudo was more interested in the photography sessions her father, a former teacher, conducted. Today, Rudo and her sister, Chido, who is 10 years her junior, have a keen interest in photography when they are not busy during the peak tobacco selling season that runs from mid-February to October. When the auction floors open, Rudo spends seven days a week at work and rarely has time to relax.
“I literally live here when it’s auctioning season. I start at five in the morning and don’t go home until there is an acceptable level of satisfaction for clients. It’s always a long day,” says Rudo.
Boka Tobacco Auction Floors is the biggest and most lucrative entity under the family’s wings. It handles 15% of Zimbabwe’s tobacco crop of around 148 million kilograms. The company auctions 10,000 bales on peak days and pays up to $2 million a day. In 2013, the company auctioned tobacco worth $92 million, according to Rudo.
“This year we should exceed this because we have a bigger crop. It is our ability to function through all conditions that makes us the preferred auction floor for tobacco in Zimbabwe.”
Rudo’s first day at the company was also the worst of her career.
“My dad built this place in 1996 and he first operated as an auction floor in 1997. When he died, his other businesses, especially the bank, collapsed. ”
With the collapse of the bank, the liquidation process attempted to liquidate everything that Roger Boka had.
“I was only 19 years old and I had to start defending what my father had built. From 2000, these premises were leased to ZITEC and we battled, they didn’t pay rent and they ran the facility down. We eventually won the court case in 2010.”
Just when the family thought their troubles had ended, the following day they discovered that this was only the beginning of another taxing period.
“We had just won the court case and thought we are going to patch up the place and rehabilitate it, only to be told that the farmers wanted the place opened because they wanted to sell their tobacco,” she says.
Rudo had plans to use the premise for warehousing, while contractors worked to rehabilitate the sections that were in bad shape. And there was no money to start. So how did the company manage the situation?
“By the grace of God, I must say, the farmers were very understanding. They knew that we were not fully prepared, but they had pressures and they wanted money.”
The advantages of a family-run business is that the family motivates each other when times are tough. While some family businesses crumble due to fights over inheritance, this has not touched Roger Boka’s empire.
“All of us [the children] are accountable. All of us are involved in certain areas where we are qualified, some in accounts, others in marketing and we all go through performance appraisals. But we have external people who run this company and keep it going, like our finance manager and managers, they are all professionals whom we are not related to,” she says.
The credit for building the empire goes to the late businessman, but Rudo says that it was her late mother, who inspired him to pursue his dream of becoming one of Zimbabwe’s wealthiest black businessmen.
“A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children. It was my mom who said to him, ‘why don’t we start something of our own?’ Sometimes it takes a woman to tell a man that you will do it. Not that you can do it, but that you will do it.”

Turning Over A New Leaf

I recently recall conversations I had with purveyors of fine automotive flamboyance, beginning with the Daytona Group’s Clifford Joffe. Aston Martin’s closest iteration of a supercar, the DBS, is an amazing piece of work—all curves, lines, folds and sheer presence. It arrests the senses in all sorts of ways. Clearly the designer was not using a slide rule here. This was sheer madness. Works for me. Much has been said of Aston Martin being a small company without the patronage of a larger parent company but they still stay competitive against rivals in their segment with superlative brand cachet. It barks its presence with sheer authority. Prod the pedal and feel the haunches bristle with expectation. ‘Best of British’ sums up its credentials.
<div id="attachment_294" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-294" class="size-medium wp-image-294" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/aston-martin-300x147.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="147" />Aston Martin, DBS</div>
This is a scale above mere utilitarian spec commonly found in ordinary tackle, where one can actually see the millions it costs.
Africans in South Africa make up the majority of buyers of these cars but I never see many on the road or in Soweto for that matter, save for the odd Bentley.
Further up the scale in opulence is the Rolls-Royce. Many, the quantifier many being relative in this instance, have found homes across Southern Africa, from Angola to Zambia.
McLaren’s newly-launched MP4-12C is a mouthful really so we’ll just call it the Mac, or Macca, as the English like to say. But it is a technical tour de force, crowned with plaudit upon plaudit by the world’s hacks lucky enough to drive it. At this level, manufacturers do not skimp on emphasizing their heritage or the emotional equivalent. Invariably, you will learn lots about the race car inspired development program, the car’s previous incarnations, exotic materials for some componentry, cutting-edge telemetry, and so on. And to think all two years of its South African supply has been spoken for!
It would be an injustice to leave out the Teutons when it comes to the power stakes for those running the sweepstakes. The Big Three’s power wars of the last decade have not been in vain. What they could not do in sheer design would be made up for with huge dollops of power. It is no surprise that they snuck up on the exotics and unleashed autobahn-shrinking vanishing acts, leaving lengthy skid marks somewhere in their wake. In the process, they even went one up on the Lambo door-act, bringing home yet more of their racing heritage reaching back to the 50s Silver Arrows and Auto Unions.
Of course, their Latinate brethren further south in Europe could never be undone. They occupy an unassailable place in the heart and minds of any petrol-head worth their, er, gas. They are truly beyond comparison, borne of intense need for speed and a desire to compete. See one pass, and watch jaws drop with sheer wonderment. The more common ones you might run into tend to be either red or speed yellow, and pass with a ferocious whine, leaving you gasping for an answer to a question nobody asked. WTF? Must be a Ferrari.
Now, I know the sun rises from the east, but then I would be eaten alive if I dared detail the similarities between Lamborghini’s first engine and Honda’s Formula 1 V12 engine of the 60s. And yes, Honda’s dithering over the NSX’s successor, developed by the world’s best Formula 1 driver of our time, Ayrton Senna, is tearing apart the hearts of enthusiasts who know it inspired McLaren’s F1—the world’s best sports car ever to some.
Nissan’s GTR35 (pronounced as Godzilla to the non-Japanese amongst us) will eat supercars for breakfast, lunch and dinner, while Lexus’s ode to Mount Fuji will more than hold its own against many a westerner. Cult cars come from the East. But then, Western aesthetic defines how we define sports cars.
For Porsche, looks are for those who like to look. While it may lack the others’ pulchritudinous qualities, it is by and large considered the most practical sports car ever made. The newly launched 911—all 48 years of its shape—will not see any real revision before 2025! It is first and foremost a designer’s car, singularly committed to the realization of one truth and the quintessential sports car. Derision greeted some of the company’s recent offerings—the ungainly proportions of a utilitarian crossover in the Cayenne and the bloated midriff of the Panamera. There will be more gnashing of teeth from self-appointed custodian enthusiasts when the brand launches hybrid versions of its newer line up. But they will once again go on to make Porsche the world’s most profitable sport car manufacturer.
Come to think of it; Ferdinand Porsche was a designer. He displayed in Paris the world’s first hub-centric hybrid system—electric motors to drive the front wheels. In 1901. This is technology that is only about to be adopted by virtually every car maker today. As early as 1904, he was supplying and building four-wheel drive technology for cars. He went on to design the world’s first mid-engine race cars. Then he sought to defy the laws of physics by placing a car’s engine way past the rear axle—just because he wanted to create a more practical sports car. To accommodate rear seats in his first sports coupe, he turned the engine around so it hung over the rear axle. Although no longer called widow-makers and tail happy (the pendulum effect) as a result of much development, 911s still inspire awe in many an enthusiast. And so perhaps there is indeed truth in the conclusion that Porsches are more about development than design. That appears to pervade the Porsche mystic at the company’s Zuffenhausen headquarters. Thank God for Peter Schultz who defied the sceptics in the mid-80s when they wanted to drop the 911 from the line-up. And so Porsche South Africa managing director, Toby Venter will have you believe—all roads lead to Porsche.
In these days of austerity and layoffs, some of these cars will make for more compelling buys. And for factory bosses and bankers everywhere, they are what Clifford Joffe calls permission buys. Workers will not go on strike, and governments will not be reconsidering tax laws upon seeing some of them. These cars are beginning to grace the roads across Africa, opening up new vistas of discovery for car enthusiasts, collectors and poseurs alike.

Tag: Rolls-Royce

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