When Mr. Tony Elumelu veered into the nation’s banking industry during the late 1990s and instituted Standard Trust Bank (STB), majority of his peers did not give him the chance and hope to steer the tide and come out champion.
At the height banking consolidation, STB merged with United Bank for Africa. Some of the merger outlook saw the new bank remain UBA as a name and STB logo as official logo till today.
With his wealth of experience, UBA had become the pan-African bank and Africa’s global bank.
Today, Elumelu is the chairman of the bank.
The bank provides services to over 15 million customers globally, through one of the most diverse service channels in sub-Saharan Africa, with over 1,000 branches and customer touch points and robust online and mobile banking platforms. The assets are in excess of $19billion. Tony Elumelu is the Chairman of Heirs Holdings (HH), an African investment company committed to the economic transformation of Africa through investments that generate both economic prosperity and social wealth. The goal is to catalyse the economic growth of Africa while generating exceptional value for the shareholders and partners. HH invests proprietary capital for the long-term in the most promising sectors of the continent: financial services, health care, infrastructure, real estate and hospitality, agriculture, oil and gas. Its operations are rooted in the economic philosophy of Africapitalism which proposes private sector-led long-term investment in Africa by Africans.
Transcorp is a diversified strategic investor with core interests in three sectors: agribusiness, hospitality, real estate/facilities management, and energy. Transcorp is committed to being actively engaged in these sectors of the national economy to stimulate growth and build a viable business enterprise that will be the pride of its shareholders. Transcorp serves as the vehicle that will mobilise capital on a large scale while investing locally on major projects. The vision is To be the most dominant conglomerate in Africa over the next five to seven years. Transcorp shares are traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Industry experts and several international analysts have seen Elumelu as the champion of the African emergent entrepreneurship and private sector-led economic development for the continent of Africa.
Elumelu’s drive in deepening entrepreneurships in Africa is currently giving hope to intra-African trade and economic integration which had been lacking before now and which had been the bane of the region’s economy and the clog in its wheel of continental progress.
Since he launched Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), he has stepped up speed in building more institutions that are powering youth engagements and empowerment from Lagos Nigeria to other major cities in the continent.
Today, observers agree that the institutions he has built cut across financial sector, healthcare and the real sector as well as infrastructure development. He has also instituted human capital and entrepreneurship development platforms for the continent, pointing the way to go for Africa that would survive globalism. At Vanguard Newspapers, we see the emergence of a modern corporate Africa, led by
Vanguard Media at its recent Awards ceremony revealed that “Elumelu and a few other continental business leaders to redefine and give vent to the ideals espoused by pan-Africanist movements of the mid-20th Century. They are set to actualise the aspirations and visions of the continent’s early leaders sooner than could have been possible with the present political structures and leadership across the 54-nation continent”.
“The nature of the emergent corporate Africa is already ventilated in the principles of Africapitalism, created by Elumelu.
Africapitalism The future we all want for ourselves is one of our own making – Tony O. Elumelu, CON.
Africapitalism is the economic philosophy of Tony Elumelu predicated on the belief that Africa’s private sector can and must play a leading role in the continent’s development. The foundational principles include: Entrepreneurship: Unlock the power of individuals to create and grow their business ideas into successful companies Long-term Investments: Deploy patient capital that creates greater and broader economic value as opposed to merely the extraction of resources, which Africa has been known for and which has kept it impoverished amidst abundance.
Strategic Sectors: Invest in sectors delivering a financial return as well as broader economic and social value – agriculture, power, healthcare, and finance. Tony Elumelu Development Dividend: Conduct investments and business activity in a manner that delivers financial returns to shareholders as well as economic and social benefit to stakeholders. Value-Added Growth: Leverage locally available human and financial capital, raw material and other inputs that create longer, more integrated and higher value regional supply chains. Regional Connectivity: Facilitate intra-regional commerce and trade through the development of national and cross-border physical infrastructure, and the harmonisation of policies and practices Multi-Generational Development: Focus on investments and economic growth strategies that build value for future generations.
Shared Purpose: Foster collaboration between businesses, investors, governments, academia, civil society, philanthropists and development institutions to create conditions that will empower the African private sector to thrive. Africapitalism is a call-to-action for businesses to make decisions that will increase economic and social wealth, and promote development in the communities and nations in which they operate. Such a decision will ultimately help businesses become more profitable as the communities they serve become well-off consumers, healthy and better educated employees, and even entrepreneurs who go on to become suppliers and service providers.
However, in his exclusive definition, Elumelu averred that “Africapitalism means we cannot leave the business of development up to our governments, donor countries and philanthropic organisations alone. The private sector must be involved in the business of development.”
