COVER STORY
After earning his degree, Mohammed was hired by a financial
Fast mover advantage
Tanzania is a large country, measuring roughly a million square kilometres and more than 85% of the population live in rural areas. Most large fast-moving consumer goods manufacturers encounter difficulty in moving goods across to the most remote areas. MeTL does not have that problem. Over the years, Dewji has built one of the best distribution networks and warehousing facilities in the country. MeTL has more than 100 trade outlets across the country and through its transport and logistics subsidiary, Glenrich Transportation, operates a fleet of more than 1,000 different vehicle types which move across every corner of the country providing fast delivery of goods and efficient services to the clients. Today, MeTL has business interests in more than 30 different sectors and operates across east, central, and southern Africa. Its agricultural division is one of the largest producers of the fibre sisal, used in composite materials. It operates 11 sisal plantations covering a total land area of more than 40,000ha in five regions of Tanzania. The company also farms tea, cotton, and cashews. More than 90% of the cashews it produces are shipped to the US.
services firm on Wall Street where he worked 100-hour weeks and earned a little over $60,000 a year. While for many it seems like a lot of money, it was hardly enough when paying rent in Manhattan and 30% in personal income tax. Within a few months of working, Dewji realised he needed a hand. “When I called my father asking for financial support to sustain
myself in the States, he politely turned me down,” Dewji recollects with a smile. “He said I was chasing pennies in New York and helping the
Americans build their economy, whereas there was a family business to run, and fortunes to be made in Tanzania.” Reluctantly, Mo, who was only 23 at the time, packed his bags
and headed back to Tanzania. “I always knew I was going to go back home. I always wanted
to go back, but I had such a strong community of friends in New York and I was sad to leave them.” In 1998, Dewji returned to Dar es Salaam to join his father’s
business, taking up the position of chief financial controller for the group. MeTL was already one of the biggest trading companies in Tanzania by the turn of the century. The company imported everything from sugar and wheat to cotton and soaps, and exported Tanzanian cashews, cowpeas, maize, and everything in between. MeTL was a prosperous export-import and trading house.
But the barriers to entry in the import business were quite low, and soon the space became saturated. Competition stiffened and the margins on the soft commodities that had become MeTL’s mainstay were thinning. “Don’t get me wrong, trading is a great business and, in fact, we
are still very big on trading today,” says Dewji. “But it is too passive. We were importing edible oils and soaps,
which I couldn’t understand. Why import soap? Why couldn’t we manufacture the soap ourselves?” So Dewji drew up a business plan for an edible oils
manufacturing facility and approached his father, suggesting they start manufacturing certain items. His father, while impressed with his son’s initiative, asked him to hold off on his industrial ambitions. It was too capital-intensive and the older Dewji wanted Mo to channel his energy on a business they already understood well—trading. Dewji suspended that dream for a while, keeping in line
with his father’s wishes. But he knew the future for MeTL was manufacturing. He waited for the right time and opportunity to take the plunge. That time came in 2003 when the Tanzanian government
decided to put some loss making state-owned manufacturing assets up for sale. “Essentially, these companies had been run down to bankruptcy
because of government inefficiencies and they were eager to sell them at giveaway prices. I took a loan and bought a lot of these sick industries, including soap production, grain milling, rice,
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