Honeywell is a privately owned Nigerian business group with investments in diverse fields including food, hospitality, energy, and real estate. They aspire to grow into a principal Pan-African brand adding value across the continent through enterprise.
This commercial giant was founded by Oba Otudeko, a business mogul and one of Nigeria’s richest men. And although the current size of the conglomerate makes it impossible for him to run its affairs as directly as he did in its earlier days, his influence still weighs quite heavily on them.
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Made By a Banker-Entrepreneur
Oba Otudeko was born in 1943 to a royal family in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. He bagged a degree in Accountancy from the Leeds College of Commerce Leeds in the United Kingdom, after which he built a career in the Nigerian banking sector spanning over two decades. In due course, he underwent managerial training at Harvard Business School and Hult International Business School.
Otudeko established Honeywell as a trading company in 1972. In its early days, its trading involved the movement of commodities between the north and south of Nigeria. The business later expanded to embrace the larger West African sub-region, as well as incorporate the importation of goods from Europe and South-America.
Its flour processing venture kicked off in 1985 with the launch of Gateway Honeywell Flour Mills (later renamed as Honeywell Flour Mills) in collaboration with the Ogun State government. The flour mill remains one of the most recognized arms of the brand, and the one with the biggest revenues generated. Today, Honeywell Flour Mills is a Public Limited Liability Company, with its shares traded at the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
The company birthed a number of subsidiaries in 1988 including Pivot Engineering Company, Honeywell Fisheries Limited, and Honeywell Construction Limited (presently known as Skyview Estate Limited). In the years that followed, Pavilion Technology, Honeywell Oil and Gas Limited (HOGL Energy), and Broadview Engineering were added to the conglomerate.
Honeywell Group was part of a syndicate that launched Econet (presently Airtel) in 2001, the first mobile telecommunications network to operate in Nigeria. Oba Otudeko was appointed Chairman of the Board. In 2004 Telecgsm was started as a distributions company for leading mobile phone brands. It grew to become the largest of its kind across West Africa in three years. However, the group later forfeited its interests in telecoms.
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Contemporary Involvements
In 2011, the group partnered with the Radisson Hotel Group to set up the Radisson Blu Anchorage, a 170-room Lagoon-side five-star hotel. Uraga Power Solutions- an energy solutions company – and Itana were established in 2016 and 2018 respectively.
Honeywell Group is active in the food sector through Honeywell Flour Mills PLC, a major producer of flour, pasta, and noodles in Nigeria. Honeywell also has a real estate subsidiary in UREL (Uraga Real Estate), creators of Upbeat Recreation Center at Lekki, Lagos, which is West Africa’s first trampoline park.
The conglomerate has a number of interests in the energy sector, including Broadview Engineering Limited, an engineering and procurement company, and HOGL Energy Limited a player in the oil and gas downstream sector. Honeywell Group also provides logistics based services as well as power generation and distribution services.
As part of its corporate social responsibilities, Honeywell Group has gifted endowments and donations to universities in Nigeria. In 2018 Itanna, a venture capital initiative for funding and mentoring technology-based startups was established by the group. They have invested over $335,000 in the cause since inception.
Featured image source: The Premium Times
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