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Bloomberg explores T.Y. Danjuma’s billions worth assets in UK, others
Bloomberg Africa, has in an article on Wednesday, explored multi billion naira worth investment of former Chief of Army Staff, T.Y. Danjuma in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
The US based news platform noted that Danjuma, who made his fortune first out of the civil war, has family property scattered around the world.
“The Kings Arms Hotel is a 300-year-old inn next to London’s Hampton Court Palace, once the home of Henry VIII. It’s poised to open soon after refurbishment, with rooms costing about 250 pounds ($318) a night. Guests can dine on traditional fare in the Six restaurant, a reference to the monarch’s many wives, or grab a pint on the terrace,” the article reads.
“In this most English of settings, it’s fitting the owner is a retired military man still referred to as “General.” But for Theophilus Danjuma, this is just one investment in a network of assets that span at least three continents. The 80-year-old Nigerian is worth $1.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with his family office managing a portion of that wealth, often through low-key holdings such as the 14-room hotel.”
The article reads:
“We never tend to look at trophy assets,” said daughter Hannatu Gentles, the second of Danjuma’s five children and chief operating officer of his London-based family office. “We’re not going to head to Mayfair to buy a 15 million-pound apartment primarily because we are a yield business.”
Danjuma’s new venture is far removed from civil war and deepwater oil fields, the spheres where he amassed his power and fortune. In 2006, his South Atlantic Petroleum Ltd. sold almost half its contractor rights for a section off Nigeria’s coast to a state-backed Chinese firm for $1.8 billion. Danjuma was awarded the block in 1998 by the regime of former dictator and fellow army officer Sani Abacha, making him one of a handful of Nigerians made extraordinarily wealthy from the country’s energy reserves.
“Basically, these people got winning lottery tickets,” said Antony Goldman, founder of West Africa-focused ProMedia Consulting. “At the time, you had a government desperate for credibility that was isolated internationally.” Danjuma was “someone who’s not really a politician, who is respected in business and in the army.”
Danjuma was born in 1938, the year Royal Dutch Shell received its first oil exploration license for the country and more than two decades before it gained independence from Britain. He dropped out of college in 1960 to join the army, according to “Nigerian Politics in the Age of Yar’Adua” by Bayode Ogunmupe. He gained prominence after participating in the 1966 counter-coup against Nigeria’s first military dictator.”
Read full Bloomberg article here
