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7 Facts About Mike Adenuga Towers located at plot 1, Mike Adenuga Close, Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria.
1. It was unveiled on August 30, 2004 by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar when he was the Vice President of Nigeria.
2. It has 13 floors and was designed by Harcourt Aduke, an indigenous building and civil engineering works consultant.
3. It has helicopter landing pad and a unique gold colour glass canopy supported by galvanized cast iron.
4. The bull, the personal totem of Globacom Chairman, Dr. Mike Adenuga Jr, is etched on the gold glass and is most visible at night when the installed revolving multi-colour light beams on the building.
5. The building took 13 years from the dream to the construction by Otunba Michael Adeniyi Ishola Adenuga Jr
6. It is the most magnificent building in Lagos.
7. Mike Adenuga Jr is in love with his most prized property in Nigeria.
~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima
The Profile of Dr. Mike Adenuga Jr.: The Octopus...by Roland Ogbonnaya and Malachy Agbo
Otunba Mike Adeniyi Adenuga rose like a meteor. Though son of a wealth trader, he started the art of making money as a student in United States where he took on two jobs - as a taxi driver and security guard - to sustain himself in school. Regarded by many as a man with the confidence of getting the proverbial honey out of the rock, Adenuga is also regarded as a man who at a young age believed in his ability to reach out to anybody who can help him realise his goals.
This confidence has seen him penetrating the ranks of the top brass of the military in the 1970s to see how the men of power could award him contracts. He partnered with Femi Akinrinade, the young brother of the Lt-Gen. Alani Akinrinade, then Genral Officer Commanding, First Division Kaduna. Adenuga had a constrution firm which won contracts in the newly established Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna. As it was with those who successfully broke into the ranks of the military then, more and more contracts were to follow such that by age 26, Adenuga had become a millionaire. The man decided not to limit himself to construction. He went into marketing clothes, wine and tomato puree. He later went into manufacturing of those items. However, the beginning of Devcom and later Equatorial Trust Bank marked a turning point in his investment portfolio. He simply leaped into the ranks of the big fish, swimming in the wealthy oceans of business.
Adenuga's rise from a contractor to a business mogul has, however, been attributed to his wide connection in the right places. This explanation could be dismissed as being too simplistic. His determination to succeed as demonstrated in his bold moves, the tenacity of purpose which prevented him from selling his oil bloc despite pressures from several credible quarters and his decision to seek the SNO after he lost his GSM licence, show a man who has foresight and who has set his gaze on noble goals and will not blink.
The Adenuga personae is also that of a man who has utilised the virtue of absence to create a king of myth around himself. He is so elusive, yet his companies surround the nation with their essential services. He also appears to be a good talent hunter. He has the best brains working in his establishments. Some close associate believe that beneath the gentle surface Adenuga portrays, he is the steely frame of an aggressive businessman - a man who thrives when he is challenged and a man who remains undaunted in the face of apparent failure.
Globacom's present contractual involvement is over US $2 billion (about N266 billion), while the cost of the licence for the business was $200 million (N26.4 billion). The turnover of Conoil Marketing, the downstream oil company for the year ended December 31, 2003 is N34 billion, while ETB assets at the end of last year was N47.41 billion. The assets of Conoil producing and Southern Airlines were not immediately available, while his huge investment in real estate was not readily available to THISDAY. The assets of Devcom are also not available at press time. But suffice it to say that the man indeed has a very deep pocket.
With his involvement in the crude oil exploration, production and export and the heavy equipment dependence of Globacom, the MA Group as Adenuga's conglomerate is known paid well over N10 billion in duty in the last fiscal year, ended December 31, 2003. Adenuga has in direct employment over 8,000 people. And because Adenuga is involved mainly in capital intensive, high intellectual businesses, majority of his employees are graduates cutting across all strata of careers.
Born April 29, 1953, Adenuga was educated at the Ibadan Grammar School where he bagged the the nickname "Gold Digger," a nickname he has adopted to his choice of business and even use as appellation on his Ibadan country home. He later went to the United States in search of the golden fleece. In the US, he attended North-western University, Alva, Oklahoma and Peace University, New York. He also holds an honorary doctorate degree from Ogun State University.
The Bull Invades the GSM Sector
Adenuga joined the market as an endangered specie, having entered the telecommunication sector and indeed the GSM business as the fourth entrant and two clear years after the other operators had been in the market.
But before he joined, he counted the cost of joining late. People close to him say that the man had analyzed the effects of late coming and noted that a late entrant must either come with a bang or fizzle out as quickly as he came. According to associates, Adenuga believes that you cannot be a goat and go to the house of a leopard to fight him. You need to be a lion. Adenuga decided to be a lion. He is also called "the bull", an unyielding animal. Investigations from Mike Adenuga Towers revealed that commitments and contracts for ongoing work on the Globacom Project are in excess of $2 billion. This is staggering in this clime. Even by US standards, the amount is mind-buggling. An official of the company who said he had worked with at least two other GSM networks in the country before joining Globacom said, "In other networks, the major constraint to projects is finance. In Globacom, what we need are the ideas and time to execute the projects, not the finance. It is not that the finance is unlimited, but it is readily available, provided it is meant to be used to achieve the Chairman's dream of providing the most sophisticated network in Nigeria and Africa".
For example, it took over 36 African networks in Africa, led by Telcom of South Africa, to build the SAT3 submarine cable which is currently being used by many African networks. Globacom has signed a contract to build a submarine cable, singlehanded, that will link Lagos and London in the shortest possible, thereby providing an alternative to the SAT3.
This was the driving force when his Globacom launched with per second billing when competitors said that the platform was not going to be possible until 2007 and even when it was more profitable to join the statuesque. But Adenuga is not a man to be caught in the statuesque. He is a trailblazer.
Not done yet, he introduced the TalkNow instalment offer through which he not only crashed the cost of SIM from about N20,000.00 to N7,000.00 but even spread the payment over a period of time to make initial financial outlay for entry very convenient and comfortable. In the industry today, experts alike acknowledge that Globacom has the most advanced network in the market today. This has gived the company the capacity to offer some of the most sophisticated products in the market. This includes Magic Plus, an information, entertainment and commerce offering, MMS, Glo Mobile Internet and Glo Direct which makes the Glo Mobile phone a modem for accessing the World Wide Web. Adenuga has just landed one of the most virulent uppercut punches which has kept its competitors on its toes. It is his N1.00 offering. Already, the proceeds have started rolling in. In record time, the company has reported a subscriber mark of 1.8 million, effectively becoming the current number two network in the land and edging the troubled Vmobile to the third place. MTN, acknowledged as number one in Nigeria, certainly has to watch its back.
No advertising agent will argue that the acquisition of Globacom account is the beginning of riches for it. Newspaper organisations, magazines, radio and TV and the various soft sales are enjoying these benefits today as Adenuga's Globacom is arguably the biggest advertiser in the country currently.
The Oil Sheik
While it appears that Adenuga had just arrived the scene with the Globacom breakthrough, the man actually showed what he is made of with his oil business. At a time many Nigerians were mere agents for foreign oil companies, as the sector was thought to be the exclusive preserve of Foreign Oil companies like Shell, Total, Elf and Texaco, Adenuga plunged into the murky waters of the black gold. He hit it big and thus became the first Nigerian oil explorer to locate oil in commercial quantity.
At the moment, he is seriously prospecting oil in Sao Tome and Principe and inside sources say the man hopes to hit it big in this oil rich country soon. Again, he is not a man to get into a sector half way. He puts his arsenal together and becomes a major force in the sector. For him, there are no second measures. He is either a winner or nothing else. By the time he indicated his interest in National Oil and Chemical Company Nigeria Plc (now renamed Conoil Plc), many thought that the man had gone astray. "How could an astute business man and investor like Adenuga ever come close to look, how much more touch National Oil?" a broker had asked then. Today, it is a different story. A broker, who was asked by his client to buy Conoil shares for him, retorted: "Even with an AK 47, it is impossible to get Conoil shares at the stock exchange." Conoil has not only been brought back to life, it has enriched investors of the company who for years had been hearing stories of the unfavourable economic climate which hampered profits.
Financial experts say if Adenuga decides today to sell his shares in Conoil, he will naturally walk away with $500 million in his portfolio. This alone is big cash by all standards. But the man will certainly not walk away...
The Financial Guru
Adenuga has controlling interests in two major banks in Nigeria. They are Devcom Bank which recently joined universal banking from its former merchant bank licence and Equitorial Trust Bank (ETB) which has etched itself in the league of ten biggest banks in Nigeria. In this season of N25 billion capital base fever, ETB and Devcom are just cool doing their business. These two banks,THISDAY learnt, will meet the new capital base requirement without going into any merger. No customer of the banks is in any doubt that the banks will not be here next year. The economic stability at the two banks has made sure that staff of the two banks are not threatened by the sack fever making the rounds in the banking industry presently. Adenuga's investment in banking is a cash cow, no doubt.
And the Others
While it is common knowledge that Adenuga is a major investor in the Oil Sector, both upstream and downstream, telecommunication, both the fixed, Mobile, gateway and carrier and banking, only few people know that the man runs a chartered flight company called Southern Airlines. He also owns World Span with interests in Real Estate, merchandising, manufacturing etc.
