Uwadiale Agenmonmen is the chief executive officer of Raedial Holdings Limited, a conglomerate with interest in real estate, agriculture, financial services, hospitality, power and energy. In this interview with Seyi John Salau, he shares his experiences and entrepreneurship journey. Excerpts:
What prompted the switch from engineering to real estate and agriculture?
A lot of people wonder why I made a drastic change from oil and gas to agriculture. Agriculture is something that I actually found interesting. I think there are a lot of similarities between agriculture and real estate when it comes to building something from nothing. It has been fascinating to me for a long time and that is why our major businesses at Raedial Holdings are centred on agribusiness and real estate. It affords us the opportunity to build things from nothing.
In agribusiness, for instance, the palm oil seed is so tiny that it grows and yields for 30 years and brings good returns. It is just from one seed plant that keeps growing while you nurture it. Real estate also has that same effect as well because it involves developing a structure that was initially just a design on paper, which is why I like Dubai, the structure they have there is remarkable. It is different and not conventional.
So, we are trying to see how we can develop affordable housing projects. We want to see how possible it is for us to build houses that people can afford and have the payment spread over a long term without interest. We want to give people the opportunity to own good homes, not far-fetched ideals they cannot buy not until they can earn a certain amount of money. That is how we transitioned from oil and gas to real estate.
At what point in your career as an engineer did you get to the stage you knew it was time to venture into entrepreneurship?
Although I had grown to the stage where I was earning well for not much, it wasn’t even about the money. One major reason for deciding to switch to business was my family. I was everywhere, travelling to different countries, and I was not really at home. On several occasions, I would get home, get a work call and I’m on a flight back to Lagos. Also, my job then became repetitive and to crown it all, I got stuck in Kuwait during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Kuwait is a very conservative country, we could only go out between 5 pm and 7 pm every day. I needed to be close to my family, but I also knew if I came back home, I couldn’t afford to stay idle. That was when I realised I needed to jump into entrepreneurship. I had to set up and do something about it. A lot of people advised me to keep working while I maintained my business on the side. But I knew if I wanted to make the best out of my business, I needed to resign and face it squarely as I can’t do both.
We are trying to see how we can close the gap in Nigeria’s housing deficit by embarking on affordable housing projects.
Have you always been passionate about entrepreneurship? How did it start?
Entrepreneurship has been a thing of mine for a very long time. However, there are some basics you must have for you to strive regardless of what you want to achieve as an entrepreneur. Education and experience are two important elements entrepreneurs should have. I gained experience working in other countries’ oil and gas sectors and with people of different cultures and perspectives. It is a great deal managing other people’s business, so I knew I had to pay my price. I paid the price in the oil and gas industry by working hard.
The decision-making process in running a business is different, and I learnt from the employers I worked for. Managing a business of $50 million for a company, I was looking out for seven countries at a time. I know what targets are. I know how to work with different types of customers. If you have never worked in such a capacity, you can never know because there is no school that will teach you that. I believe that if you can pay your price for your dues, work for employers, gain experience and when you think you can deal on your own, start.
Talking about my experience with entrepreneurship, in the early days of my primary school, I would buy three groundnuts with additional nylons and divide the three groundnuts into four to make a profit. In my university days, my brother and I set up a lot of cybercafés in Benin during the analogue era. We set computers from scratch, motherboards, hard drives and memory cards.
Read also: From struggle to success: Alex Udeze’s entrepreneurial journey in real estate
Why did you decide to venture into oil palm production?
One of the reasons I chose the palm-oil value chain is because it offers stability, and every part of the value chain has its use. Besides the fact that you plant once, you can maintain and harvest for 25 or 30 years, depending on the species, soil nutrients and minor practices. There is actually no part of it that is wasted – from the oil, nuts and palm nutshell, which can make biogas. It is an end-to-end by-product and we realise there is a huge deficit across the palm oil value chain.
The name of the company we use for our agro-business is Raedial Farms Limited. If you go with some industry-focused user value report, I think presently, it is by a million metric tonnes deficit for palm oil in Nigeria and we cannot breach the gap. In setting up, you would have to engage with communities and offer a lot of employment to various people.
How many people has Raedial Farms created employment for?
Considering our contractors and labourers, we are looking at about 500 at the farm, while the direct labour force is currently around 50.
You also have investments in real estate. What inspired that?
While we are not relenting in our growth in Raedial Farms, we decided to step diversify into real estate so we can actually provide affordable housing units. We’ve looked at the market personally in Lagos and we’ve realised that we can make better houses. We have heard of issues with land purchases and unit purchases. We believe we can do better with our team and level of knowledge and experience.
Lagos is the hub for everything and all our partners are in Lagos. We decided that we wanted to be closer to our partners to actually show them that we are not in some remote location. Not just the real estate business but the entire Raedial Holdings is in Lagos. However, the farm is in Benin. It has been a good experience so far and we look forward to providing excellent services to the Lagos market.
What aspect of the real estate industry is your business into?
Our real estate business goes under Magnificent Multiservices Limited but we just call it The Magnificent. We will also go into some building projects. We are trying to see how we can close the gap in Nigeria’s housing deficit by embarking on affordable housing projects. We will also engage in some luxury projects when the economy and the environment permit such projects.
We are currently selling June 15, Raedial Paragon and Imole Lagos. These products are unique because we have taken our time to ensure we follow the right processes with documentation.
With inflation cutting consumers purchasing power, how is your real estate firm surviving?
Houses that were selling for N40 million, just a year ago are now going for N65 million. Honestly, businesses in all sectors are feeling the effects of inflation. But one thing with real estate and agriculture is that they are basic human needs. It is true that the market has slowed down drastically, but the market is picking up and we are all accepting our new normal. Consumers are starting to realise that real estate is still one of the most secure investments.
Properties are pretty expensive in the major cities, especially Lagos. Most Nigerians feel that real estate developers charge exorbitantly and are driven only by profit. Some Nigerians think this is limiting real estate growth and denying them the opportunity to own properties. How correct is that?
With my wealth of involvement outside the shores of this country, I understand what investors go through and we want to give them real value for their money. But by being on the other side of the curve, I understand the pressures on developers. Running a business in Nigeria is different. Developers go through a lot, property sourcing, documentation, building materials and operational costs are over the roof. So it’s not developers that are limiting real estate growth, it’s the inflation, the economy, it’s the market.
One thing we have tried to do differently is to make property ownership as affordable as possible for people. We have also created flexible payment plans with zero interest for up to 18 months for our clients. For Imole Lagos, the initial deposit is just 250,000 NGN. We have made it so low that every Nigerian can own property, so this just shows that the hypothesis that developers charge exorbitantly is wrong.
