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THE NATION, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2011
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HE Leventis Group has become a global name. How did it all begin? It all started in the early 1920’s. After visiting Nigeria and Ghana in the 1920s, Chief A.G Leventis asked his brother, my father, to come and set up the Nigerian business in 1942, and we have been here ever since. I was the third son of Mr. C P Leventis, who was the younger brother of Chief A. G Leventis. When he started, he was only trading in produce and the importation and sale of goods. But all along, he wanted to set up a big business empire. So, he started with small beginnings and very quickly, it expanded. A.G. and my father very much understood the system because they came from an island also under the British colonial rule. They were very much in tune with the indigenous people wherever they went, including Nigeria and Ghana. A.G was very close to the leaders of Ghana and my father was very close to many of the original fighters for freedom in Nigeria and from all parts of the country: North, East, West and Mid-West. He knew everybody who later became the first set of politicians in Nigeria. Basically, they wanted to set up a large business, which eventually included distribution of vehicles, manufacturing and, of course, the soft drink business, which came about ten years after the initial business was set up. The underpinning business philosophy was to do things for the good of the local people and run successful businesses which would expand, employ the local people and be good to the country where they were set up. Looking back, how would you say the choice of Nigeria has impacted on the Leventis Group? The business we set up in Nigeria and Ghana led to everything else. It is very important to stress that investing in Nigeria and Ghana has created the Leventis’ fortune. Nigeria especially was and still very important for the Leventis family. From the time when A.G Leventis died, we have expanded into bottling operations abroad in Greece and Ireland; manufacturing of glass bottles and bottle coolers and all that. We have earned our name as a reputable global business brand, and that has shown in the phenomenal growth of our bottling business. Because Coca-Cola trusted us to be able to manage larger businesses, we were asked to expand into Eastern Europe when the Russian Empire collapsed and became a franchise bottler that has now reached 28 countries. I think in volume, we are the second largest bottlers in the world now. Cocacola has become a sort of generic name for soft drinks in Nigeria. What did it take to build such a brand? Well, it started off in a small way, like things do before they grow up. I think AG decided that because there were no soft drinks apart from some small producers, he wanted to see it happen in a big way, and he went and got the franchise. After looking at all the brands then, he decided that Coke was the best one to begin with, and he got the franchise for both Ghana and Nigeria, beginning in the 1950s. We set up the first bottling plant in the basement of Mainland Hotel building. Then this became too small, so we built a plant in Apapa, which was the first purpose-built bottling plant we set up in Nigeria. My father, of course, was responsible for the building of the bottling operations in Nigeria. I remember quite vividly going to visit him in the mid-1950s at the Ibadan plant, which was just being built. Thereafter, we built Kano and Port Harcourt plants. So, we ended up with four bottling plants in Nigeria, which remained until after the civil war ended, at which point the consumption of soft drinks expanded very well and we had to build new plants. From then on, every year or two, we built a new bottling plant around the country, because we needed local bottling plants and we couldn’t make do with one large
‘Secrets of Leventis Group’s success in Nigeria’
•Mr. Haralambos Leventis
The Leventis family was one of the earliest investors to see the prospects of the emerging Nigerian economy in the early 1920s. Over the decades, Leventis has not only turned its Nigerian trading business into a large conglomerate with interests in several sectors of the economy, it has expanded into a multinational company operating in 28 countries. As world’s second largest bottler and flagship of the Leventis Group, Nigerian Bottling Company Plc celebrates its 60th anniversary in Nigeria, Mr. Haralambos Leventis, a guiding hand of the Leventis Group, whose father set up the Nigerian business, shares with our Capital Market Editor, TAOFIK SALAKO, the inspiring story of how two brothers built a global business empire from the bustles of Oyingbo, Lagos, as well as his thoughts about the Nigerian economy. Excerpts: operation, because when you sold, all the bottles had to be brought back to be refilled. We started off with the returnable glass bottles, which was the most economical way of selling soft drinks because you didn’t have to pay for the bottle. You paid for the liquid content only and got your money back when you returned the bottle. Now, in most parts of the world, you throw away the container or can. It is not reused. But at that time, it was the most common thing to return the glass, which had to be processed. And Nigeria was and still too big to have just one plant. Eventually, I think we had about 20 operations running around the country. We had to reduce them to 13 because we expanded the size of each of them. When we expand, it is normally within the plants we have built. The most recent was in Abuja, which we set up in this century. But I must say that we had lots of •Continued on Page 22