Did you know that Tanzanian 48-year-old billionaire Mohammed Dewji, as of October 2022, has an estimated net worth of US$1.5 billion, and that he is Africa's 17th richest person and youngest billionaire?

Mohammed "Mo" Gulamabbas Dewji, born on May 8, 1975, is the owner of MeTL Group, a Tanzanian conglomerate founded by his father in the 1970s. MeTL Group of Companies is the largest privately owned conglomerate in Tanzania and it encompasses over 150 diverse products, including flour, beverages, carpets, edible oils, and matchsticks.

Upon graduation from university, Dewji returned home and assumed the management of MeTL. After two years of working with the company, he became chief financial officer (CFO) at MeTL. In the early 2000s, when the Tanzanian government privatized loss-making companies, he acquired them inexpensively and turned them into profit centers by trimming personnel expenses.

Dewji is responsible for increasing MeTL's revenues from $30 million to over $1.5 billion between 1999 and 2018. MeTL Group has investments in manufacturing, agriculture, trading, finance, mobile telephony, insurance, real estate, transport and logistics, and food and beverages. The group conducts business in 11 countries and employs over 28,000 people with the aim to target over 100,000 people by 2021. MeTL's operations contribute ~3.5% of Tanzania's GDP.

According to Forbes, Dewji has an estimated net worth of US$1.9 billion (2019), and is the 17th richest person in Africa and Africa's youngest billionaire (2018). His wealth is reportedly managed by the renowned bankers Zaoui brothers and Mohammed Abrar Asif of Ischyros New York. He was the first Tanzanian on the cover of Forbes magazine, in 2013 and has appeared on three occasions. November 2015, he was recognized as the Forbes Africa person of the year.

Dewji had formerly served as a Member of the Tanzanian Parliament for Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) from 2005 to 2015 for his home town of Singida.

According to a report in Billionaires Africa, the youngest African billionaire is set to invest $100 million in four Rwandan through the MeTL Group, headquartered in Dar es Salaam. The said companies specialize in the production of edible oil, soap, wheat and maize milling, carbonated beverages, plastic bottle recycling, agriculture, and fuel storage, among other strategic sectors.

Dewji, the visionary behind the MeTL Group, has transformed his youthful entrepreneurial spirit into a multi-billion-dollar empire spanning several African nations. The MeTL Group currently operates in eleven African countries including Tanzania, Kenya, and Mozambique.

In an interview earlier this year with CNN’s Connecting Africa anchor Eleni Giokos, Dewji revealed that many beverages and consumer goods produced by MeTL Group’s units are poised to compete with global giants such as Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, Pepsi, and Coca-Cola. 

While pointing to the extraordinary success of their top-selling product, Mo Extra, a carbonated soft drink that sold over a billion bottles in 2022, the ambitious billionaire confidently declared his intention to challenge major beverage companies and solidify his dominance in the industry, stating: “I am setting up factories everywhere where Pepsi and Coca-Cola are, and I am hoping that the 1 billion bottles can reach 3 to 4 billion bottles in the next 24 to 36 months.”

Sources: Wikipedia | Billionaires Africa

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