Like the proverbial cat with nine lives, Wale Tinubu, Group Chief Executive Officer, Oando Plc., a Pan-African multinational energy corporation, has proven to be one business magnate with outstanding survival instinct and outstanding ability to rebound regardless the hurdles.
In the views of some observers, Tinubu’s continued relevance, nay staying power should provoke some careful study by aspiring entrepreneurs or even established ones, especially in the Nigeria’s inclement business environment.
Or how else does one explain his surprising spring and daring moves just when some people, out of sheer jaundiced criticisms, had thought that he and his company were going under?
Indeed, you may not totally blame his critics, especially when you consider the fact that his company, among others, was recently hit by the dwindling oil price across the globe.
However, if the information at our disposal is anything to go by, then, Tinubu may have stooped not only to conquer his world but to also shame his critics.
Recently, Tinubu concluded a $210 million recapitalization of Oando Downstream by HV Investments, a joint venture owned by Helios Investments Partners, a premier Africa focused private investment firm and the Vitol Group (“Vitol”), the world’s largest independent trader of energy commodities.
With this, Tinubu has succeeded in rewriting the story of Oando, leaving many of his competitors in wonderment.
This may not come as a surprise to those close to him because he has, over the years, shown evidence that he understands the oil and gas business terrain very well; and like a gambler, he knows when to throw the dice and even reinvent in a shaky business environment.
No doubt, the secret of his abiding philosophy and success lies in the words of a former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill: “The empires of the future are empires of the mind.”
At the company’s 38th annual AGM, 2015, the man with vast knowledge in the sector assured shareholders that the company would rebound to profitability in 2016 and continually create value for shareholders. True to his words, the company declared N4.1billion profit after tax in the first quarter of 2016.
In the beginning, he had teamed up with Omamofe Boyo and Onajite Okoloko in 1994 to set up Ocean and Oil Services Limited to supply diesel and Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO) to various industries, shipping firms and exploration companies in Nigeria.
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Interestingly, more than two decades after they sowed in pains, the investment has grown, before their eyes, to become a multinational conglomerate worth millions of dollars spread across five West African countries. At the outset, they bought their first vessel, MT Carolina, in the mid-90s to supply diesel to off-shore companies from the PortHarcourt Refinery.
Within seven years, the fleet had grown to seven ships; and by 2000, when the government wanted to sell its controlling stake in the defunct Unipetrol Plc, a downstream oil marketing company, they bid for it. Then, many, including the former Managing Director of the old Unipetrol Plc., Mallam Yusuf Ali, had written them off. But they all got the shocker of their lives from the emerging dinosaurs in the Nigerian oil business. Ocean and Oil Services successfully paid for the shares and took over the company, with the help of its foreign technical partners, Compania Espanola De Petroleos (CEPSA), the second largest oil group in Spain.
Also, three years after, when Agip Petroli International BV of Italy decided to divest from the downstream sector, they bought over the foreign company’s shares and added Agip Nigeria, the company’s local subsidiary, to their portfolio. The newly acquired companies were merged and renamed Oando Limited. By 2005, Oando Plc had secured across border listing on the Johannesburg stock of exchange (JSE) in South Africa.
Subsequently, some other acquisitions were made in rapid succession, including a local gas pipeline company, through Wale Tinubu’s leadership, Gaslink a subsidiary of Oando Plc successfully phased and executed the construction of about 100km of natural gas pipeline distribution network from the Nigerian Gas Company city gate in Ikeja, to cover the Greater Lagos Area including Ikeja, Apapa and their environs. Gaslink currently delivers over 60 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscf/d) of gas to over 150 customers on the Greater Lagos gas distribution network grid, with the capacity to deliver up to 101 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscf/d). Two years later, he led the listing of the company’s upstream subsidiary, Oando Energy Resources on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).
Oando also recorded a feat in 2007 when it built the first 12.5MW IPP Power plant for Lagos State government, which has saved the state government over 3.5 million USD in energy bills. But that paled into insignificance in 2014 when it executed its most ambitious acquisition till date was when the world witnessed the close of his best transaction, the acquisition of ConocoPhillips Nigeria businesses for $1.5 billion fortifying Oando’s position as the largest indigenous independent oil & gas producer in Nigeria with a current net production of 53,145 boepd (Barrels of Oil Equivalent per Day) and 230.6 mmboe (Million Barrels of Oil Equivalent) of 2p reserves and 536.8 mmboe of 2C reserves.
From only one vessel it acquired in 1994, Oando now boasts six subsidiaries with interests in at least 10 oil blocks in Nigeria valued at about $600 million USD, 650 fuel stations spread across Nigeria and other West-African countries as well as lube blending plants, fuel depots, oil rigs and other impressive assets.
