Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa March 2015 | Page 14

MASTER INVESTOR

Where it all started
Sijibomi Ogundele was born at the bustling ‘Oke Arin’ market in Agege,
Lagos in Nigeria.
His mother, Mrs Adebukola, was sent to Cameroon as a young girl
at the age of 9 to seek work by selling various products. She is now the
biggest distributor for Nestle Limited in Nigeria.
When Ogundele was only six years old, he opened a bank account with
a local market banker, or ‘Baba Alajo’ and learnt the value of saving all his
funds. He loved taxi-motorcycles (Okada). He bought his first commercial
motorcycle, when he was only nine years old. Eventually he increased his
fleets to six Okadas by the time he was 13 years old, almost turning his
house into an Okada Park, which made his dad angry. He eventually sold
all the Okadas, but that did not steal the entrepreneurial spirit in him.
The apprentice
When Ogundele was only 17 years old he immigrated to Paris, where
he sold souvenirs to tourists on the streets of Nice on the Côte d’Azur
(French Riviera) in the South of France. While there, he met a man who
transformed his life. He offered Ogundele an opportunity to get into the
venture capital industry. As both an agent and middleman in this industry,
Ogundele earned a 3% commission when he was 20 (FF1.8 million) of 60
million French Francs (which equates to about €5 million today).
In 2001, Sijibomi became a Partner in Sujimoto Investments which
provides credit facilities and empowers Small and Medium Entreprises
(SMEs). He does this through his well-connected international network
of wealthy partners.
Four years later in 2004, he established his career in Risk Assessment.
He then became a Venture Capitalist and Investment Strategist. Sijibomi
established Moto Finance in Paris and Madrid where he helped more than
170 businesses to obtain access to