Publishedd: Wednesdaay August 13, 2008
Billionaire businessman Lawrence Duprey is carving a new entrepreneurial path through Africa, the continent where all life began and the place that many regard as the investing world's final frontier.
He's spent most of this year flying between several African countries as he takes his Port of Spain-based CL Financial conglomerate into a part of the world where global investments are succeeding where foreign aid has often failed.
Duprey is among a growing cadre of intrepid investors looking for treasure in the African nations.
On one of his brief visits to Trinidad last week, Duprey discussed the opportunities for CL Financial as it expands into Ghana, Tanzania, Botswana and South Africa.
During an exclusive interview with the Business Express at CL Financial's hospitality suite at the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain, he said his company planned to invest US$3 billion in Ghana during the next five to ten years.
There is no blueprint for this kind of investing and the best opportunities must be dreamt up from scratch.
This is exactly what Duprey had in mind when he started hopping planes back and forth across the African continent.
His plan is ambitious, and expensive.
"We are looking at building an ammonia and methanol plants in Ghana and we're also exploring tourism opportunities in Ghana," he told the Business Express.
The investments in that African country are being financed through European sponsors, he said, adding that he expected to sign contracts for a plant before the end of the year.
CL Financial, which has more than US$30 billion in assets and operates 70 companies in 32 countries, is also building a five-star hotel in Ghana and exploring other entertainment sector investment opportunities, Duprey said.
The Trinidadian conglomerate's interest in Africa comes at a time when, thanks to a global commodities boom during the past few years, sub-Saharan Africa's economies are expanding, and like bees to honey, investors are swarming in search of enormous returns that only ultra-early-stage investments can bring.
Enter Duprey and CL Financial.
He notes that Ghana has recently found about two billion barrels of oil and has about seven trillion cubic feet of gas to develop related industries.
Located in West Africa's Gulf of Guinea, Ghana became independent in 1957 and has a population of about 20 million residents.
Its exports include cocoa, minerals, gold and timber.
Duprey also has invested much of his time this year exploring other opportunities in Botswana, South Africa and Tanzania, he told the Business Express.
He is utilising CL Financial's Oman experience where it commissioned a methanol plant and has been successfully operating it for more than a year.
The plan now is to introduce the Oman, as well as the Pt Lisas model (where CL Financial operates seven energy plants) in other African countries, Duprey said.
In May, Duprey met with Ghana's president John Agyekum Kufuor in the city of Osu in the African country to discuss CL Financial's first set of investments in that part of the world.
CL Financial has acquired approximately 400 acres of land at Winneba to construct the five-star hotel.
In a statement on Ghana's Ministry of Information website, President Kufuor said the nation was ready for those who came in as genuine partners.
He said it was easier for businesses to make returns in Africa now than they could anywhere else and encouraged companies owned by Africans in the diaspora that were making it big to look more to the continent.
International analysts have pointed out that investments in Africa are coming at the right time and may be the best hope for a continent where international aid has not helped much.
Africa's economic situation at many times has seemed hopeless, with US$625 billion in foreign aid pouring in since 1960 but with no rise in the region's per capita GDP.
Now big investors are making a trend of sinking even bigger money into the promising African markets.
Duprey agrees about the potential, saying it was the place to invest and that it could be easy for a group like CL Financial to grow there.
"It's the next place of rapid development in the world," he said.
Source: Trinidad Express Newspapers
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/index.pl/article_business_mag?id=161363200
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