He started trading commodities more than 30 years ago after receiving a business loan from his uncle, and eventually built the Dangote Group, which in addition to cement owns sugar refineries, flour milling and saltprocessing facilities.
He delved into full production of these items in the early 2000s and went on to build the Dangote Group, West Africa's largest publicly-listed conglomerate, which now owns sugar refineries, saltprocessing facilities and Dangote Cement, the continent's largest cement producer.