By Olamide Bakare / Correspondent, Lagos
Dangote Industries Limited (DIL) has been ranked among Africa’s top 100 most admired and valuable consumer brands in 2014. According to the ranking released by Brand Africa in conjunction with African Business magazine, DIL emerged as the only brand of Nigerian origin among the continent’s topmost brands.
Dangote
In the 2014 Brand Africa 100 rankings of the most valuable and admired brands in sub-Saharan Africa released recently, DIL was ranked 36 in admiration and 76 in terms of brand value, having been valued at $253 million.The report also stated that Dangote remains one of the most remembered indigenous brands that enjoys great appeal from consumers.
The ranking did not come as a surprise as DIL has presence in about 15 African countries which has made the brand more visible to the local populace.It would be recalled that the President/Chief Executive, Dangote Industries Ltd, Aliko Dangote was recently ranked among the World’s most powerful 72 people by Forbes Magazine. The continent’s foremost billionaire is listed as the 68th most powerful person in the world, and is one of only two Africans to appear on this year’s list while the magazine ranked Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as Africa’s most powerful man. In the case of the latter, He is ranked 51st on the power list. According to its ranking of the World’s Most Powerful People, Dangote is the second most powerful man in Africa.
The magazine was quoted to have acknowledged the powerful influence of Dangote as it stated that “heralded by some as the face of the new Nigeria, Africa’s richest man is looking beyond cement, sugar and flour — the three commodities that built his fortune — to the oil business. In April he announced $9 billion in financing from a consortium of local and international lenders to construct a private oil refinery and fertilizer and petrochemical complex in the country.”
It should be recalled that Consumer News and Business Channel (CNBC) recently ranked Dangote as one of the 25 most influential people in the world in terms of having a profound impact on business and finance. A CNBC spokesman said: “They have disrupted industries, sparked change and exercised an influence far beyond their own companies. As CNBC embarks on its second quarter-century, it faces a world completely altered from when it started.
In its latest survey CNBC, global financial and business outfit ranked Dangote as 23th among the first 25 people who have impacted the business world most since 1989 . Apple Computers founder Steve Jobs topped the list followed by, Bill Gates, with other names on the list including Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt.
Other notable names on the 25-man list included Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Bogle, Larry Ellison, Rupert Murdoch, Jack Welch, Narayana Murthy, Howard Schuldt, Bernard Arnault and Li Ka-shing. Also on the list are Carl Icahn, Meg Whitman, Amancio Ortega, Michael Bloomberg, Sandy Weill, Cher Wang, Martha Stewart and Carlos Slim.
In 2013,Time magazine named Dangote among the100 most influential persons on earth. Microsoft Founder and Co-Chair, Bill and Melinda Gate,Bill Gate had wrote in a tribute in honour of Dangote in commemoration of his listing by the Time magazine where he made clear reference to his wide business interests.. Gate dwelled extensively on the philanthropic gestures of the President of the Dangote Group in the areas of health especially polio eradication and job creation efforts.
Source : Independent