DANGOTE PETROLEUM REFINERY & PETROCHEMICALS IPO INVESTOR ROADSHOW, KANO

is IS. I like that.

Let him. Thank you very much.

His who is seated is, like you are aware, is chair of today's historic occasion. Our host is also seated. May I request all invited guests at this point to please take their appropriate positions. Photographers and members of the press, could you just do that in 2 minutes and then take your positions now? Thank you very much. Now make your way to the reserved area for members of the press and photographers. I appreciate if you just make way now. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Muhammad Sanusi II, Amir of Kano, our distinguished host, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, GCON, Group President and Chief Executive of Dangote Industries Limited, our keynote speaker, Mr. Bismar Rewani, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Financial Derivatives Company Limited, esteemed traditional title holders, respected members of the Ola, captains of industries, leaders of the financial and investment community gathered here, scholars, professionals, members of the media, distinguished ladies and gentlemen. As-salamu alaykum. By leave of the chair, His Highness, we would like to commence proceedings. Thank you very much. Please, I will appeal for the last time that please the photographers and others just take your appropriate seating position. Your Highness, Mr. President, we will commence proceedings with the national anthem. I'm informed. So technicals, if you are ready, please let's take the national anthem.

Thank you very much. May we all please be seated. Your Excellency, distinguished invited guests, Your Highness, ladies and gentlemen. History occasionally completes a cycle. An idea leaves a city and returns as an institution. And sometimes history itself rewrites itself. Kano has always been known as Africa's preeminent commercial center. And perhaps even more importantly, Alhaji Aliko himself has described his own connection to this city in perhaps the simplest and most powerful way possible. He says, and I quote, 'Kano is home.' Those three words remind us that however far enterprise may travel, every great journey remembers where it began. And so this grand homecoming signals another important phase, an IPO for the people. And today, Your Highness, distinguished invited guests, it is fitting that we begin this conversation in the spirit for which Kano has been known for centuries: openness, enterprise, wisdom, and trust. My name is Muhammad Muhammad Haruna, and it is my singular privilege to serve as your master of ceremonies on this historic occasion. Welcome to Kano. Welcome to the grand homecoming, and welcome to the IPO for the people. Let's put our hands together for ourselves today.

We are assembled because one man dared to have a vision, and visionaries do not come easy. They are not in abundant supply. Ladies and gentlemen, His Highness, esteemed speakers, his enterprise may have traveled across borders. His industrial ambition may have become continental. But when asked about this city, like I said earlier, he had reduced biography, ancestry, and belonging to just those three words: Kano is home. And perhaps that is why this is not merely an arrival. It is a return. And it is on that point I would like us to please put our hands together resoundingly as I invite Alhaji Aliko Dangote, GCON, Group President and Chief Executive, Dangote Industries Limited, to deliver his welcome remarks, but even more importantly, the investment proposition. Please let's welcome Mr. President of Dangote Industries. Thank you very much.

He's just going straight to... Thank you very much. Now I thought without asking, the president will get a resounding round of applause beyond this for the inspirational feat, for the great things he has done and continues to do that makes not just Kano proud but Africa. Thank you very much, Alhaji Aliko Dangote. Your Highness, ladies and gentlemen, cities sometimes produce men who succeed in commerce, like the last speaker himself. But great cities also produce institutions that are capable of remembering why commerce should ultimately serve society. Kano has both. Our chairman today sits as a rare intersection of tradition and modernity, economics and Islamic scholarship, central banking and traditional authority, history and development. He has reminded us consistently that Kano is a commercial civilization with roots reaching back centuries. But his larger argument has consistently also been that history alone cannot feed a people. Commercial inheritance must become education, human capital, opportunity, and productive investment. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, may I respectfully invite our chairman and special guest of honor, His Highness the Emir of Kano, Khalifa Dr. Muhammad Sanusi II, to make his chairman's remarks.

Let me welcome the President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote. Although you don't welcome someone to his home, but since he has brought all the way from Lagos and Rivers, Bismar Rewani, and I've seen Tunde Adebajo, I saw Zainab Ahmed from the Nigerian Republic, and a number of guests who are here. I'd like to welcome you to the city that is the center of commerce. The city that has produced now the two wealthiest Nigerians from established commercial families in Kano. I'll make my remarks very broad and general because I expect Bismar Rewani, maybe Tunde Adebajo, to go into the details of the IPO and discuss the economy.

I always remind people that for centuries, Kano was the third largest city in Africa after Cairo in Egypt and Fez in Morocco. And Kano grew largely because of commerce. It created the environment that made it the most attractive location in sub-Saharan Africa during the Trans-Saharan trade. Our Kurmi market, which you can visit, and I hope those of you who have not visited will visit, was built in the 15th century in the time of the King Muhammad Rumfa, Sultan Muhammad Rumfa, and it was the first built-up market in sub-Saharan Africa. It is therefore not surprising that we continue to produce these entrepreneurs: the Dangotes, the Dantatas, the Isaiahs, the Rabius, and so on. And these are people who generation after generation have entrepreneurship, risk-taking, hard work, and business in their veins.

I'll speak from personal knowledge and say that the journey to this refinery started in the 1990s. I was a credit risk management officer in UBA. Aliko was our client at that time. He was importing and selling as a trader. And it's an interesting story because at that time, as you know, banks always gave overdrafts, and Aliko wanted to move into manufacturing. And he took our overdraft facility and set up a production base at the ports in Apapa, producing flour, I think, processing imported cement and bagging it. And for those of you who are bankers, you know what happens when you take overdrafts and invest in long-term assets. The overdraft became sticky, and we kept following for repayment. So one day he sent his treasurer, Alak, to us, who said we should meet in Apapa. And he showed us the production facilities and said, 'We did not steal your money. This is where the money is.' And I was shocked. I said, 'Yes, but you have to pay.' He said, 'Well, you have to wait. We have put the money in production. This is where your money is. You have to wait.' So we were forced to restructure the facility because one, the money had not been diverted. So I said, 'Why didn't you tell us you are doing production?' He said, 'If I told you, would you give me a long-term loan?' So from there, Aliko arranged a meeting with his general manager. I think he was called Mr. Kunut. And Mr. Kunut at that time had a blueprint developed with McKinsey, and he said, 'This is our vision. This is our strategy. You have a country of almost 200 million people. Just think of your life. You wake up in a house. That house is built with cement. You eat food. You enter your car to go to the office, and you need fuel.' He went on and on. Took me through a life from morning till night. I said, 'This is where the market is. Somebody needs to produce the petrol for your cars. Somebody needs to produce the cement for your houses. Somebody needs to produce the food that you eat. We are importing these things from Asia, from Europe, from America. Our strategy is to produce those things here.' I'm telling you about a conversation that took place, I think, in 1998. So I was there from the very beginning. So everything you see, from cement to the refinery, has just been one consistent strategy. If you have 200 million people, you have the market. You don't need to go anywhere. Everybody is coming to Nigeria to sell to us. And one person says, 'I am going to produce those goods for this market.' Now, will we ever stop driving our cars? Will we stop entering our aircraft? This is a model that is the most sustainable business model you can think of. You have to build a house. You have to eat. You have to drive your car. You have to enter the plane. You have to ride your motorcycle. So when you think of it in terms of the fundamentals and the thought process that has gone through it, this is the best business decision you can make. And everybody who has followed that path, you'll notice his brother, who is the second richest Nigerian, is also doing the same thing, going into the same model, producing the same things, targeting the same market. It is a proven track record. The difference is that Aliko was the one who took the first risk. In Hausa, we say that when you go to a river, you wait for someone to cross first. If he does not drown, you also follow. So we're going to see many, many more people try and do this.

So from the perspective of an economist, this is precisely what Nigeria has always wanted. How can we be a country that exports what we do not have and imports what we have? How can you be an oil-producing country and be importing petroleum products? How can you have the agricultural land that we have and be importing food? How can you have the deposits of limestone that we have and be importing cement? And therefore, beyond business, beyond profits, we have to thank Aliko for what he has done for the Nigerian economy. As Governor of the Central Bank, one of my biggest and saddest problems was seeing how every day we would spend so much effort to earn foreign exchange from the oil sector, exporting crude oil, and then spend the same foreign exchange importing petroleum products. Instead of using the foreign exchange to develop agriculture, to develop infrastructure, to develop education, we would export crude oil and then turn around and import refined petroleum products and actually pay subsidy to keep refineries open in Europe, refineries open in Asia, because we bought their petroleum products at market and we were a market for them. What Aliko has done is disrupt that model. We don't need someone to take our crude to England and France, refine it, and sell it back to us at a profit. We don't. We should refine it here and buy and also sell to others. We have moved from a country using its foreign exchange to import petroleum products to one that potentially will be earning foreign exchange from being an exporter not just of crude but also of refined products. A few months ago, during the crisis in the state of Hormuz, the European airlines were buying aviation fuel from Dangote Refinery. So we have also become a source of geopolitical stability, providing alternatives to the Middle East. It's something that as Nigerians we should be proud of. That an African is building one of the 10 largest refineries in the world. That an African is refining this crude for us and selling to us. And we are no longer dependent on imports.

It is the same story with cement. Now people talk about monopoly. There is no monopoly if a monopoly is not protected by law. Nobody says you cannot set up a refinery. Anybody who wants to build a refinery, anybody who wants to go and look for $22 billion, invest, go through what Aliko went through, build a refinery, please, you are welcome. But do not sit down. You've taken your money to invest in property in Switzerland and in France and in England and complain about somebody being a monopolist. Go and sell the assets and come and invest in Nigeria. So we want more people to move from rent-seeking. We want more people to move from taking money abroad to buy property to come and invest. You want to build a cement plant like Obajana, please come. We want more cement factories. We want the price of cement to come down. Build more refineries. We want more refineries. So let us not be talking about monopoly, monopoly, monopoly. The only reason you have a monopoly is because he's the only one who has taken the risk on Nigeria, and he's entitled to it.

Now, when I was in the Central Bank, I used to call, and this was how many years ago, I used to call Aliko Dangote a concentration risk. And it has continued. Because I remember a presentation they made to the economic management team at that time talked about their cement plans, their refinery plans, their sugar plans, and they said by the time we are through, we will be 60% of Nigeria's manufacturing GDP. To be honest, I think today the Dangote Group is more than 60% of the GDP, and it's already getting to about 40% of the Nigerian stock exchange. So if you were to invest in a company, who would you back? You'd have to go to them.

The final comment is on this IPO. Aliko Dangote is from Kano. People in Kano have not been very active. I know that people like Dr. Faruk, they have been preaching this for a long time. We have not been very active participants in the stock market. It doesn't matter where the refinery is located. It could be located in Lagos or Ibadan or on the moon. It is the shareholders who own it. It is the shareholders who hold it. Shareholders who take the return. It is the shareholders who own the profit. So I would urge us to join. This is our son. He set up this refinery. Let Kano own this refinery. And I'm not talking about someone who will buy 5,000 shares and want to sell tomorrow and believes he will get 10,000. No, I'm talking about you have some money, put it in, leave it there for some time, and just watch your money grow. Forget about it for some time. You'll be surprised in 5 years the 10,000 naira you invest today what it will be. The 100,000 naira you invest what it will be. So I would urge all of us to try to begin the process of owning. And if you're going to own, you might as well own in a company that has the right economic fundamentals, a company that is producing. You can see the assets on ground. It is not crypto. You can see the refinery on ground. You can see how it is producing. It takes crude. It turns it into refined products. Those products go into your cars and your aircraft and they move on. And then it continues. You can see where your money is going. It's creating jobs, direct and indirect. It's producing fertilizer which goes into our agriculture. He has secured his own gas supply. He's at the port. He has access to his own markets. All the economic fundamentals are there. As he said, invest responsibly. Do not take your children's school fees and put in shares. Do not sell your house that you live in and put in shares, but what you can afford, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, what you can afford to set aside for some time, set it aside. And if you look at the fundamentals of the economy over time, you can be assured that this investment will grow and you will not regret it.

So, and to be honest, people are buying from all over the country. I speak as the Amir of Kano. I would like my people to be owners of this company. I do not want us to be left behind in the capital markets. I do not want us to be left behind in financial inclusion. So this is the time and this is the opportunity. I would urge all of you, especially those who are representing unions, talk to your people, our markets, they need to take advantage of this opportunity. I thank Aliko for deeming fit to come to Kano. I thank him for changing the date so that I can attend. I would like to say that he wanted Kano to be the very first point. This was his plan, but my own diary did not accommodate, and he kindly changed and moved it to the 17th. So this is how much he values Kano. And as I have said before, you know how, sir, we have a statement we say that if you're a good person, everybody claims you. We have Lagos claim Aliko. I know very soon even Egypt will claim him, America will claim him. But we all know where he comes from, and he has told you this is his grand homecoming. We are happy to donate him. We are happy to share him. But please do not take him away from us. Thank you very much.

Mr. President, and I refer to the President of the Dangote Group, His Highness has taken us on a historical excursion. The next speaker reminds me of a bit of history, Your Highness. 14 years ago, almost to this day, on the 12th, I do remember we were here, Bayero University Kano had gathered to honor a newly turbaned Kano who at that time also happened to be the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, my boss. One of the men invited to interpret that moment economically was a certain Mr. Bismar Rewani. And I looked through the records, his paper bore a title: 'The Lamido's Era: A Period of Anticipatory Macroeconomic Policy Changes in Nigeria.' I remember that paper spoke of an era distinguished, amongst other things, by openness and transparency in the policy process. Distinguished guests, 10 years have passed, that has become AMIA, and Bismar has returned to Kano to a different economic question, perhaps with the same responsibility: helping us to separate excitement from evidence, aspiration from arithmetic, and possibility from probability. Mr. Bismar Rewani, welcome to a familiar terrain. Let's put our hands together as I invite him, the Managing Director, CEO of Financial Derivatives, and the driver actually of this roadshow, like the President himself said. Let's put our hands together for Bismar. Always a delight to listen, and a bit of history. Yes, please. You have the clicker here.

Thank you. Thank you, MC. His Highness, the Amir of Kano, the President of the Dangote Group. Let me stand on existing protocols. The title of this presentation is 'The Mother of All IPOs.' I remember when Saddam Hussein had the war, the second Gulf War, and talked about the mother of all wars. So this is the mother of all IPOs. And where I come from, which is way back in the riverine area of Nigeria, we say that we dress from inside our house to go outside. We don't dress from outside to come into our house. So that is why we are saying that Aliko is dressing in Kano to go out and is not dressing outside to come in. So we're saying the mother of all IPOs: buy now or forever hold your peace. This is 50, 60, 80 billion naira capacity, 1.44 million barrels per day, and the PAT is there. So what do we do about this? Three things. One, Kano from Emirate to nation-state. Two, awakening the sleeping giant called Nigeria. And the 5-year outlook: take off or break out. So one, Kano from Emirate to nation-state. This was Kano. Okay. So, the trading hub connecting West Africa to the Trans-Saharan network in the last century became a colonial hub for export trade: cotton, textile, groundnut pyramids, hides and skin. It's a politically sophisticated group of people constantly protesting against the old order, a nucleus of political emancipation, and has not stopped until today. We fortified houses, city, and trans-Saharan commercial center, now a metropolitan and commercial industrial center, and we are going to tell you what it will look like 5 years from today.

Now the Kano economy is average, but the market is large. You can see, and when you talk about Kano, you talk about its emirate and its environs. Kano is not just a market of its own. It's a gateway to the market around it. Kano's central geographic position gives business access to a larger regional market. You can see there. So what does this mean? Today we are adding Kano to Jigawa. So the GDP of Kano and Jigawa is 12.47 billion in 2023. Nigeria, it was 4.49% of the Nigerian economy. The population, 22 million. It's 10% of Nigeria's population. If you add Kano and Jigawa together, the GDP per head in Kano and Jigawa is $832, while that of Nigeria is $1,599. So it is 52% below the national average. And if you take Abuja, where the GDP per head is about $12,000, in Lagos, $7,000, you can see the gap. There was somebody who says, 'Why do you rob?' 'I rob where the money is.' 'Why do you rob?' 'Because the money is in the banks.' So you count the number of bank branches in the state to tell you how well that is. Kano and Jigawa have 194 branches of the 4,934 branches of banks. 4%, so to speak, of all the branches of the banks in Nigeria. They have almost 10% of the population, 4% of the banks, and they have 52% of the GDP rather than 100%. Number of petrol stations in Kano and Jigawa are 461. The total number of petrol stations in Nigeria are 22,681. Kano and Jigawa have only 2% of the petrol stations in Nigeria. Base stations, people talk on the phone, right? Base stations in Nigeria have 145,000 base stations. Kano and Jigawa has only 1,000 base stations, which means that 75%... So it's a tale of opportunity and not taking advantage of that opportunity. Total international and local flights that come into Kano, 468. In Nigeria, 9,000. Only 5% of the flights coming to Nigeria come through Kano. Universities, polytechnics, and teaching hospitals. Kano and Jigawa have 21. In Nigeria, there are 309. You have 6.79%. This is the stark truth, the inconvenient truth. Electricity distribution companies in Nigeria, 12. Kano has one. And the irrigation dams. Kano has three. There are 162 in Nigeria, only 1.85%. So this tells you what Kano and Jigawa, what share they have of the Nigerian economy. So Nigeria, awakening the sleeping giant. Nigeria has been asleep for a while, and it's time to wake it up, jolt it up, and do whatever it is. So there are momentum investors and speculative investors. A momentum investor, like many here, and the Amir alluded to it. A momentum investor may subscribe because they...

Believe strong earnings growth, investor confidence, and the refiner's long-term prospects could drive the share price higher after listing. South Africa is $1.53 trillion, 358% of its GDP. Nigeria is just catching up and is $119 billion, 42% of its GDP. When you look further, Casablanca, Morocco, $118 billion. And if you compare to the population, you see that we are not even serious yet. 64%. Egyptian stock exchange 23% and $84 billion. It goes all the way down to Dar es Salaam where there's $13 billion. And mind you, the Dangote refinery is investing in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. So Uganda Securities Exchange, you can see they already know what time it is. So awakening the Nigerian sleeping giant is there. Now it's not just Africa. We're talking about Nigeria. We're going to look at this closely. If you look at the Nigerian stock exchange, which are the top 10 companies, right? By market capitalization, Airtel Africa is number one, 23.68 trillion naira, 21% constant currency. Dangote Cement is 17 trillion naira, 20.3%. MTN is 17 trillion naira, 54.9% revenue growth. Dangote's growth 20.3%. BUA Foods 13.69 trillion and it's growing at 16.2%. BUA Foods, BUA Cement, it goes all the way to Aradel Holdings and GTCo. There are benefits to Kano. Dividend income paid by these companies came to 1.56 trillion in 2025. So if you own part of it, you'll be getting 1.56 trillion. Taxes paid by these companies to the government, so investors benefit, government benefits, 1.32 trillion naira in 2025. Please check out how much is shared by FAC. And one thing, the Dangote refinery has just announced six-month earnings, and you will see that the revenues of about 21 trillion naira, when you analyze it, is more than the Nigerian government total revenue. So Dangote's refinery revenues are higher than that of the federal government of Nigeria. So capital appreciation, ownership in major Nigerian businesses. 80% of the largest listed companies have a physical or commercial presence in Kano. So if you didn't buy Dangote Refinery, you didn't buy anything, and you decided to do something else and you bought Apple. Price of Apple at $22, original units at IPO was 23. It is now all the way, if you bought $22 that time, you'll be worth about $1.69 million. Now, this was way back. If $500 was invested at IPO level, you'll be worth $2.2 million if you bought Apple. If you bought Nvidia, which started only a few years ago, $12. If you've invested $500 at Nvidia, you'll be worth twice what you got in Apple, you'll be worth $5.5 million. I'm not saying you go there and buy it now because Nigerian stocks, 5,000 units at IPO, MTN. If you bought 5,000 units IPO, no stock split, 5,000 units today, you want 450,000, 4 million naira in terms, you've made n times your money. Oil, if you did that, you'll be worth 172 times your money, 63 million naira. So if you are a betting man, I think you don't need to be told. So impact of Dangote refinery on the IPO, the GDP of Nigeria is 278 billion dollars. The stock market capitalization of $119 billion, and if you do whatever you have to do, the earnings per share is $1.82 billion. Earnings per share is 44 cents. And you'll be getting your dividend in dollars if you so choose. Annualized $3.64 billion and earnings per share 89 cents. Assumed annual P/E of $5. So basically $5 billion P/E plus 5% annual growth. This is what you get. It's a no-brainer. So equivalent of 45% of Nigeria's stock market capitalization. That's the refinery alone. Expected to generate at least $8 billion annually from fertilizer. Expected to generate approximately $126 million annually from aviation fuel when refinery throughput increases to 1.4 million barrels a day. You know that's it. So what makes Dangote refinery a compelling investment? Exceptional scale, strong profitability, import substitution, capacity expansion, first mover industrial advantage. You can't go wrong. So five year outlook, takeoff or breakout for Nigeria. Takeoff is a stage when investment, industrialization, and productivity increase sufficiently to generate self-sustaining economic growth. But now Ruch Sharma says to be a breakout nation, the breakout is the process through which an emerging economy overcomes structural constraints and enters a period of accelerated and sustained growth, allowing it to outperform its peers. This is where we are. It's a no-brainer and it's happening. So let's look at Nigeria and Indonesia. Nigeria in 1970 had GDP of 12 billion. Now it's $278 billion. In 1970, the GDP per head that time was $643. Today is $1,599. Next 5 years we expect our GDP will be $600 billion. We expect the GDP per head to be $3,200 from where it was in 1970. Poverty rate in 1970 was 19%. 19% of Nigerians were poor in 1970. 2025, 63% of Nigerians are poor. So we're working our way down the ladder of success. Right? So next 5 years we expect the GDP per head poverty rate to drop to about 8.5% and next 5 years we will get no poverty rate to 6%. And you know now in Kano in 1970 it was $525 million the GDP of Kano. In 2025 it has gone to 11 billion. Next 5 years we expect to go to $16 billion. And we expect that to happen. GDP per head in Kano in 1975 was $75. Now it's $832. We expect to double to $1,664. The poverty rate in Kano today is 66%. We expect to come down to 57%. That's what the truth is. In the next 5 years, and this is Kano 5 years ago, and we think that in 5 years time it will look like Bali in Indonesia because Indonesia is the largest Muslim population in the world. And that's where we see it going. And you can see Bali from $166 million in 1970 to $5.3 billion to $15.5 billion in 5 years time. So the gap is closing and Kano will be the new Bali as we go along. So conclusion, Nigeria's opportunity lies in moving from exporting resources to exporting value added products, from building factories for Nigeria to building industries for Africa, and that is why we are here. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you very much Mr. Bismar. Please let's put our hands together. It's always fascinating the way he makes light of numbers and everybody was listening with rapt attention. Your Highness, distinguished invited guests, for many investors in this room, the question is not merely is this commercially attractive, but designers and Bismar have convinced us that it is. Now there is another question. Is this structure ethical and consistent with the jurist credential requirements by which I conduct financial transactions? This is a question I believe is on several minds in this hall today that is neither an incidental nor a ceremonial question. It's a question that requires scholarship for answer and to guide us through that dimension. We are privileged to have in our midst Professor Bashir Alu Omar, one of the country's respected scholars of Islamic jurisprudence, who is going to be making a presentation on the Sharia perspectives of the IPO. Please let's welcome him to the podium.

Alhamdulillah. Before starting, I would like us to make a prayer. We were supposed to make an opening prayer at the beginning of the occasion. So let's send salutations upon the Prophet, peace be upon him. Your Highness, the Emir of Kano, Khalifa Dr. Muhammad Sanusi II, the President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, the guest speaker Mr. Bismar Rewani, distinguished invited guests. I don't have a presentation but I am making an elucidation on the Sharia perspectives of the IPO because it has been the concern of so many people and making it a home IPO here in Kano. It is the concern of the majority of the population that whatever they are going into, they want to know the position of the Sharia regarding its permissibility. And His Highness the Emir, he has been the principal person in the history of Nigeria and he will go down in the history of Nigeria of institutionalizing Islamic finance. And since it is a public offer, the Securities and Exchange Commission, they wanted the opinion of the Financial Regulation Advisory Council of Experts of the Central Bank, established, the pioneer body was established by His Highness when he was the Governor of the Central Bank in 2013. There has to be this certification just as this body makes certification for each Sukuk issuance that is offered to the public. Now the question, this certification is for Sharia compliance because the essence of every transaction in organized markets is confidence of investors. And for confidence to be instilled and be maintained, it has to go with the belief system of the majority of the investors. Now having an investment that is Sharia compliant, it does not preclude non-Sharia compliant investors, but having an investment that is non-Sharia compliant, it precludes a sizable section of the society that only want to deal with Sharia compliant investments. So principally, regarding investment in the capital markets, we have to see the objectives of the Sharia which is the provision, the attainment of benefit and its maximization, and the eradication of harm and its minimization. Now benefit in the context of the Sharia is preservation of life, preservation of religion, life, intellect, progeny or family and wealth. The operations of the capital market fall under this necessity of preservation of wealth. Wealth is to be preserved, protected and its well-being maintained. Capital markets have been one of the areas whereby the enormous capital that had been accumulated in the Muslim world, especially after the rise of petrol, after the Iranian revolution from only $11 per barrel to about $40 of a barrel. These surplus funds were lying in banks and investors wanted to invest in the capital markets because of the advantages. The return on the capital markets is more, they are deeper, there are many options of products. On account of this, there was the need to examine the compliance of those investments to the Sharia dictates of the religion of Islam because principally the central element in regarding Sharia compliance in financial transactions is prohibition of interest. And in order to achieve that, there has to be a lot of deliberations because companies by their nature, they have to seek for long-term investments and these long-term investments you get them from the capital markets. So there is no company that will not mobilize funds using interest-based financing and that has been a serious case of concern. It will mean that you cannot invest in such companies. On account of this, collective legal reasoning was done by Sharia scholars because Sharia is dynamic as Allah has said, we have not excluded anything from the book of Allah. So that is why there was the need to look at the situation and come up with a legislation. The religion of Islam has brought us answers to all our problems. The people of the book during the time of the companions of the Prophet, peace be upon him, used to say to them, your prophet has taught you everything including toilet matters and the companions used to say yes. So out of this belief that there has to be a solution and also from the saying of Allah, whoever fears Allah, that is strives to walk according to the dictates of Allah, Allah will put an opening for him. Efforts were made at collective legal reasoning, collective Ijtihad to arrive at how to invest in these capital market products. Among the first things that were done was the Dow Jones Islamic Market Index. The group of scholars that were advising the Dow Jones Islamic Market, they come up with screenings or what they regard as what will make a share, a stock Sharia compliant. Then followed by the first standard setting organization of Islamic finance, the Accounting and Auditing Organization of Islamic Financial Institutions, AAOIFI. Then the FTSE Islamic Index, they came up with also their own screening criteria. And the Sharia Advisory Council of the Securities Commission of Malaysia, they came up with their own screening criteria. Now all these criteria were to facilitate for Muslim investors to invest their funds in the stock market and avoid what will taint their wealth or what will make them to engage in a Sharia non-compliant business activity. Now when the issue of the Dangote IPO came up, there was the need that the IPO should also be made Sharia compliant in addition to what is there of the economic and financial benefits. There are people who will invest if it is Sharia compliant from within and from outside Nigeria. In Nigeria, we have the Fund Six of the pension scheme which allows for investment in ethical funds. And if this issuance is certified as Sharia compliant, pension fund administrators could invest directly in the primary issuance, not in the secondary market, to invest those pension funds. Takaful entities, Islamic insurance, they have been licensed and they are looking for avenues to invest their surplus funds because they are managing these funds to underwrite risks. The system is being offered as an alternative to conventional insurance which has been deemed to be unacceptable to the Sharia. Islamic banks, Islamic fund management entities that are growing in the country. The Islamic banks are also growing from the two that were licensed by His Highness himself at the beginning of launching the guidelines for the supervision and regulation of Islamic financial institutions. We have about five full-fledged banks and so many microfinance Sharia compliant banks. So the need is there for these institutions and also for high net worth individuals that have divested their investments from stocks that are deemed non-Sharia compliant and they are interested in investing in Sharia compliant papers in the capital market. So the need is there. But then since it is going to be a public offering, by virtue of the regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission, this offering for it to be made Sharia compliant for the PFAs to invest in it and for the Central Bank to allow Islamic banks to hold these assets and for the high net worth individuals and for the ordinary people to invest, there has to be a certification of Sharia compliance. And this is regarding investments by investors within Nigeria but outside, there are those investors that will only invest in Sharia compliant stocks. So there is the potential for getting foreign investors to come and invest in this offering, all predicated on establishing its Sharia compliance. So Sharia advisers were engaged to look at the collective Ijtihad that had been made and they decided to use the Ijtihad of the Accounting and Auditing Organization of Islamic Financial Institutions based in Bahrain, the AAOIFI, which sets two basic screens, a business screening criteria and a financial screening criteria. The business screening criteria is to establish that the business line, the business activity of the enterprise is Sharia compliant. That is, it is devoid of elements that are deemed impermissible like pornography, like liquor, like pork, like casino business. So if it is examined that the business activity is a permissible line of business activity, then you can invest in that. Next comes the financial ratios. It is almost impossible to find a company that does not seek interest-based financing either from the banking industry or from the capital market. Now if this has become what they call, that is, it has become a general problem, a general challenge in doing business and it is not possible that when you have a general need that there will not be an ease from the Sharia. A general need is regarded as a necessity. This general need because of its general nature, it reaches the level of necessity because they say by its maximum, a general need is regarded as a necessity and there is a principle of the Sharia that necessity leads to setting aside what has been made impermissible. And there is a threshold in the Sharia which is that one-third of anything is regarded as predominant. So if the interest-based transactions of a corporation is less than one-third, then it is regarded that out of this general necessity, investment in such a share is permissible because it is not conceivable that Muslims will migrate away from the capital market entirely because that is inconsistent with that principle of benefit. Benefit which we said is the preservation, well-being and protection of wealth because it will mean that your wealth will not be preserved and will not be protected and wealth has been protected by the Sharia by so many reasons. Based on these, the collective Ijtihad, the collective legal reasoning is that if the percentage of interest-based loans of the enterprise as a percentage of the total market capitalization of the enterprise is less than 30% according to AAOIFI which is the standard that is being used, or less than 33 and a third percent according to the Malaysians and the FTSE, if it is less than 30% then investment in such shares will be deemed permissible as based on the general need that they have said. Another thing, now when they evaluated what is there in the Dangote offering, the financials were presented to them and it was also presented to us. It was found to be 13%. The ratio of interest-based loans as a percentage of the total capitalization was 13%. The second ratio is normally companies when they have surplus funds they invest them in interest-bearing deposits. Now this will bring about, this is an activity itself that is not Sharia compliant but because companies by virtue of their operations, you can hardly find a company that does not do that. So a threshold was set which is that the amount of funds out of the total revenue of the institution, the amount of funds that will be invested in interest-bearing deposits should be less than 30%. So what was found for the Dangote Group was that it was less than 12%. The third and final ratio was the interest income. Interest income is haram. Even if you are necessitated, if you are by necessity, you have to deposit some of your funds in interest-bearing securities. Just like all Islamic banks, they do in dealing with their correspondent banks outside Nigeria. They have to deposit their funds in accounts that bring about interest. So normally there has to be an interest income whether you like it or not if you have to operate in financial markets. So on account of that, the threshold set was that if the amount of interest income is not up to 5%, then Sharia compliant investors can invest in those funds but there has to be purification just like the banks, they purify what comes to them of interest income. So investors, they have to calculate what comes to them as their share of dividend of interest income and dispel it to charity. Based on the calculations for the Dangote Group, it was 2%. That was the amount of interest income which was within the threshold. Now the Sharia advisor, they did this but then because SEC requested that the advisory council of the Central Bank has to review and give its own certification. This council which as I said was primarily established as an organ of the Central Bank and now in the BOFIA 2020 it has recognized this council. It was made by guidelines during the time of the Emir but he already instituted the framework whereby this will become a legislation of the National Assembly. So the BOFIA recognizes this body. The body was established primarily with under the chairmanship of the Chief Mufti of the MUI of Nigeria who is Sheikh Sharif Ibrahim Salai al-Husseini, a very respected scholar internationally. And he is the chairman and I am currently the deputy chairman and we have representation from international scholars. There is Professor Muhammad Akram Laldin, a Malaysian who is a member of the Sharia Advisory Council of the Central Bank of Malaysia and the Securities Commission of Malaysia. There was Sheikh Bhan Arbona from Bahrain. He's the head of Sharia of the biggest Islamic bank of Bahrain, Assalam Bank. And there is Professor Alaro Abdul Razak Alaro who has been a member since its inception. He's a professor of Islamic law of banking and finance in the University of Ilorin and he's the chairman of the Takaful Advisory Council of the National Insurance Commission, NAICOM. We have Professor Usman Nurin who is a professor of Islamic law, a professor of law and the head of the International Institute of Islamic Banking and Finance of Bayero University. And last but not the least, we have Dr. Omar Oseni, the former Chief Executive Officer of the International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation, a body that was established also by the active participation and support of His Emir. May Allah reward him for that. Which is the only single international organization that is issuing short-term liquidity instruments in convertible currencies that will address the short-term liquidity challenges of especially global Islamic banks. Now the pioneer CEO is also who is now the Executive Secretary of the International Center of Arbitration of the Organization of Islamic Conference. He is also a member. In the beginning, the Emir wanted the membership to have this international collaboration and there was Sheikh Ahmed Abdullah, Sheikh Ali Ahmed Ali Abdullah of the Sudan who was also a member but he died and he was replaced. Now this body has been the body that has been certifying all Sukuk issuances to ensure that they are Sharia compliant and this is what it has done. Now I have mentioned the confirmation of the business screens and the financial screens. So many questions had come to me and I was going to make an explanation during our Dars of Al-Mata which I did in-house.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Professor Alu Omar, Your Highness sitting as chair, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to try as much as possible to see that we are very efficient with the time we have left. The next item we have is the presentation by Vetiva. It is very important, it's a demonstration I am told in conjunction with MoneyPoint. But after that we're going to be having a quick panel conversation moderated by Dr. Mahmud, Engineer Mansur Ahmed, Dr. Faruk Omar, Mr. Aminana, Mr. Adjo will be speaking before we take the... and if the time permits we would have a question or two and then ensure that we invite the Emir for the vote of thanks. Why I put this out is that I'm speeding it up to ensure that all the subsequent speakers, the panel by Dr. Mahmud, Vetiva, please I would appreciate very much if we are very very economical with the time we do have so that we just... I see His Highness and the President having conversations already and they've signaled me so let's quickly invite Mr. Chuka, a second, Mr. Chuka please let's have you quickly. I'm told 5 minutes. His Highness said the President are still in conversation, it's all about the time management so please, I know perhaps you wanted to give you 10 minutes, I would appreciate if you could do this in five. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Your Highness, Dr. Muhammad Sanusi II of Kano, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, President of the Dangote Group and Chairman of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemical Enterprise. All other protocols observed. I will keep this very brief. We're going to have a demonstration with MoneyPoint on how you can invest digitally. But I have no choice but to make a few comments riding on the back of what the President said, what His Highness said and also what Bismar has said. Now if I start from what Bismar has said, he gave us some statistics as to the percentage of banks in Kano which is very low, far lower than the percentage of Nigerians in Kano, of about 10%. So if the Emir said how can people own this business and they are underrepresented by banks, it means that we have a lot of work to do. Now I will connect you to why we are doing this which Allah explained. It's not just for the money, it's to ensure that every single Nigerian can have a share in an asset that is transforming Nigerians and Africans' energy security. And if you don't do it now and you buy maybe when we complete our expansion, the pricing may be out of the reach if we listen to what Bismar said. So that's why now is important. Now why digital? Clearly if we are waiting for the banks, we are underrepresented by the banks. We cannot buy these shares over the period of 30 days. So we have to come up with a digital solution by taking shares to Nigerians right to your doorsteps. And you can invest through the digital platforms of banks, your stockbroking firms. And in this particular instance, there are about 2 million POS in Kano, that's far in excess of percentage of the population and these POS are available in every local government, every corner, every shop, every market, every school. So that's why for us we can't achieve the aspiration of the Dangote Group if we don't enable people digitally so that no one is excluded and we also ensure those other values of financial inclusion is also important. The ambition of the Dangote Group is to ensure that almost every Nigerian that is able will invest and that itself will be transformational for economic growth. So that's why it's important that we partnered with MoneyPoint and First Bank that have digital portals to ensure that their POS is available everywhere and everybody in Kano. And that's the only way we can answer the Emir's challenge, how can Kano own this refinery is by participating. Every single Kano indigene can invest and we're coming up with a platform to make it easy. And by ownership doesn't mean you have to own 100% of the company, you have a stake so that you can identify with the company and you can identify with the company's future. So I will invite my colleague Abdul Rahman very quickly to say a few things and do the demonstration. Thank you very much.

Okay. With due respect to the existing protocol, as my colleagues explained, this is just for me to demonstrate the process of how an individual can buy this IPO share via MoneyPoint terminal. As everyone is aware, MoneyPoint is one of the points that drive financial inclusion. We are able, just like the GCEO of Vetiva explained, in Kano alone we have more than 2 million POS terminals of MoneyPoint and those people that are holding the terminal are the agents. So whoever wants to buy the share, whether he's from the village or area or semi-area or in the city, he can meet any agent that has MoneyPoint POS terminal and within 30 seconds to 1 minute he can be able to buy that share for him. So I don't know if the camera can view this demo I'm going to show. So on the POS terminal with transparency and everything, when customer approaches agent that he want to buy share, that agent will just click. Okay, so since we are in Kano, let me just explain it in. So account, continue, pulling out customer detail automatically. So continue. So minimum of 5,250. So automatically, talk successfully. Successful. Please the agent that I'm demonstrating with is POS, can you come forward and tell me your PIN so that I can quickly... please quickly, quickly please. Don't run. Please just tell me, tell me, tell me. Okay, tell me what is the... sorry he will change it that's why I asked him to tell me just for us to save time. So as he clicks, he writes his PIN and clicks continue, it will just process and buy the share for that particular customer without wasting any time. And as it does that, customer's number, hello, stocks, number, 10. Yes. Multiple times. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Yes. So now please let's quickly have this set. I'm placing Dr. Mahmud, Engineer Mansur Ahmed, Dr. Faruk Omar, Mr. Aminana, and Adjo. Between the last time I thought I had 5 minutes for you and now reading the body language of His Highness and the President, I am constrained to further tighten and the language of monetary policy that 5 minutes to three each for your conversations and we will be having that shortly so that you can... so Dr. please quickly... It's been a very rewarding day here in Kano. The expositions have been very, I'm sure without a doubt. Yes, please. Let's quickly do it. And I just skip that. Mr. Tyro Machido is part of this panel. Please quickly let's have the full complement of the panel. Thank you very much. Planners. This is good. Let's have the microphone for... Yes. Our panelists again, Engineer Mansur Ahmed, Dr. Faruk Omar, Mr. Machido, Mr. Amu Dangana, Mr. Ta. All right. Yes. Thank you. Yes. All right. Mr. Moderator, sir. All right. Let me... Yeah, you have your mic. Is there another...

Your Highness, the Emir, Khalifa Muhammad Sanusi II, and my boss at the Central Bank of Nigeria. I was telling Dr. Mansur now when the Emir called me, I said is it issue of time? He said I said no, it's another thing. I'm still the Emir's aide, I'm sorting out some other things for the Emir somewhere. Your Highness, we are really honored to be here, my President and the Chief Executive of Dangote Group, it is most honored to be here to chair this session. Mr. Bismar, thank you for the wonderful paper presented. Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, we're going to be brief on this because I think substantial part of the discussions have been made, particularly from Mr. President's paper, Mr. Bismar's presentation and the erudite remarks that the Emir gave. Very quickly, we have about five sets of people here. We have the shareholders representative, all of you know Dr. Faruk Omar. We have Alhaji Dangana who is a chartered stock broker. We have Engineer Mansur of Aliko Dangote of the Dangote Group who is an insider and we also have Atay Machido who is also an Islamic finance expert and has participated in a lot of the Sukuk that Professor Bashir mentioned. But to give it a setting, let me start with Engineer Mansur because you are inside of the Dangote Group, you've participated, you headed some of the manufacturing companies and you are also one time president of the Manufacturing Association of Nigeria. Having been part of the Dangote industry, Engineer Mansur, having part of Dangote industry journey and also having led the Manufacturing Association of Nigeria, what lessons from Dangote Cement growth and other businesses you are participating in capital market experience are relevant as the group brings forth the petrochemical and refinery business for public investment. Let me also warn that panelists were supposed to have five minutes, the Emir has another engagement very quickly and Aliko also has to move...

into other engagement back to Lagos. We'll be giving you just 3 minutes, two to three minutes, that you just please keep to the time. Thank you.

Thank you very much and I will stand by existing protocols. Yes, I think it's a good question to ask especially with regards to other investments under the Dangote Group because if you are investing in any enterprise what you want to be assured of is what has been the track record of that enterprise. And I believe that the Dangote Group is probably the best seller of the shares in Dangote Refinery because anybody who has invested in the Dangote over the past maybe 20 years cannot but confirm that his investment has been profitable, has been helpful, has been useful. I believe that the Dangote Cement went to the capital market, was listed first I think in 2010 at a price of 135 naira per share. Today the share of the Dangote Cement if you go to the capital market is about 1,340. So clearly there's no other justification of the fact that now I believe that if you are investing in any company, what you're doing is largely dependent on the level of confidence and the level of assurance not just of the company's operation but of the people who run the company. Over the past 15, 20 years or more, any of us who have worked with Alhaji and those who have had interactions with him know that he does one thing. He keeps his word. And if he says his company is going to grow, you can be assured that you're going to grow. And we have heard that this refinery will probably double its size within the next two years or more. Now scale is key to any investment success. If a company does not grow, it is unlikely that will be said to be successful as an investment. Now going back to the cement again, when Alhaji Aliko invested first in cement, I think through the Benue Cement Company, the capacity of the cement company then was probably just about 1.5 to 2 million tons per annum. Today, starting from that level, the Dangote Group is producing something like 50 million tons per annum. So clearly growth is assured and growth is the basis of increase in assets. It is the basis of increase in wealth to the owners of that asset. So there's no doubt in my mind that anybody who is interested in investing in Dangote Refinery cannot expect anything less than what we have seen in Dangote. But I have another perspective of this investment. It's not, if you refer to the vision of the Dangote Group, if you refer to Alhaji's vision, it's not just limited to doing what he said he's going to do in Nigeria. It's not just limited to making Nigeria self-sufficient in petroleum products, and God knows we need to be self-sufficient in petroleum products because over the past 20 to 30 years we have been deficit and we have had to depend on import and that has created so much trouble not only to the operators, to the government but also to all citizens in Nigeria. So what we can expect is that this refinery started now will be doubled in the next two to three years and may actually go beyond that. Now two things are very critical. One, scale and access to market because if you produce you must have access to market. If we're going to produce 1.4 million barrels per day over the next two years clearly we have a lot more than we require for the Nigerian market. But clearly Dangote Industries, Dangote Refinery is not just targeting the Nigerian market. It's targeting the African market. It's targeting the global market. Now somebody asked me if you produce for the global market, what is the assurance that you would be able to sell to the global market? I said why can't we? He said well look, the global market is very strict particularly with quality issues. I said don't worry because I believe that today there's no refinery in Nigeria. There's no refinery in Africa. There's no refinery anywhere in the world that can produce better quality products than the Dangote Refinery.

Okay. Thank you.

This has been assured now by the fact, and we have heard it before, that within 3-4 months of the commissioning of that refinery, Dangote was exporting petroleum products to the European market. The first, perhaps in my view, of any developing country refinery to export that, particularly the product that we have started importing is the most sensitive in terms of quality, aviation turbine. Now if you are flying any airline, the first thing you want to know is that the fuel they are using meets international standards, otherwise you don't want to board that. Thank you very much.

One statistics I will also add to that is in the month of July and August, the Dangote supply of jet fuel was the highest in the world. So if it doesn't meet the global standard, the British Airways and the American Airlines and the Lufthansa will not go into it. And what is very proud to hear about, like the Emir said, is that this is on the shores of Nigeria. That is very profound for us. So green passport now is very, very important. I see people doing a complimentary card now and put their name and their title is Dangote shareholder. So it's good.

You are both a chartered stockbroker and someone with experience in stockbroking. When you examine an IPO, what are the key fundamentals that tell you whether the underlying business can create sustainable value for shareholders over a long term? Because share is a long-term investment.

Generally you look at the business whether it is going to create value consistently over time. If a company is not creating any value consistently, you just put it aside. But there are certain fundamentals you look at. That is the quality of the business. Whether that business is well grounded, whether people can understand what the business is doing, whether that business is creating products and services that are actually needed by individuals generally. And then you look at the profitability or the return and profit growth of that company. You look at the cash generation capacity of that company. When you look at the refinery business or the business of petroleum products, it's something that creates cash on daily basis. When you go to any filling station, you see people collecting cash on daily basis. Not to talk of the refinery that is refining the product that is brought to filling stations. Then you look at the management and governance structure of the company. Dangote Group has attracted international experts. Italians have been on the payroll of Dangote for quite some time. You see Indians, Chinese, Singaporeans running the affairs of the business. It's not a business that is restricted to Nigerians. So it has global expertise. Then you look at the risk elements and the sustainability of that business that has been taken care of by the patronage of the federal government. The government has been able to take care of all the attacks and all the condemnations, all the strikes and other things that have been coming up. So the business is well protected and it is going to continue doing business for quite some time. Of course you look at the IPO, that is the value of the IPO. What is the valuation? 525 naira is quite reasonable when you look at the balance sheet of the company. Of recent, it has declared a profit, that is profit after tax, which is showing a sign of growth. So these are some of the few things that you look at when you are looking at IPO generally.