Mohammed Dewji is the richest man and sole billionaire in Tanzania, with a personal fortune of $2.1bn, according to Forbes. Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Limited (MeTL), the company he leads, has under his watch grown into one of the country's most consequential privately held conglomerates.
MeTL operates across a vast portfolio that spans manufacturing, agriculture, trading, finance, mobile telephony, insurance, real estate, transport and logistics, and food and beverages. It has a presence in 11 countries across the region, employs some 40,000 people and generates more than $3bn in annual revenues. To put that into perspective, MeTL's sales account for roughly 3% of Tanzania's GDP and are more than twice the $1.5bn the country earned last year from traditional agricultural exports such as tobacco, coffee, tea, cashew nuts and cotton.
When Dewji took the helm in the early 2000s, MeTL was not the colossus it is today. He capitalised on the government's privatisation drive and acquired several under-performing state-owned firms at depressed valuations before turning them into profitable businesses. But rather than cash out, he kept reinvesting in the businesses, guided by a policy of backward integration and a drive to industrialise Tanzania.
His bold strategy ultimately paid off. MeTL's revenues soared from $30m when he joined the board in 1999 to more than $3bn today. Now he has set his sights on the next milestone: transforming MeTL into a $10bn enterprise by 2030, driven by diversification into graphite mining and processing as well as investments in luxury tourism. It is a bold gambit, but Dewji's track record suggests he is not one to bet against.
Originally published by African Business.