Cameroon's Top 15 Companies

By Ernest L. Molua

An assessment of the biggest companies in an African developing economy is plagued by the travails of history on entrepreneurship, as governments have controlled large proportion of economic activity over the years limiting the opportunities for privately owned companies. The Entrepreneur Newspaper researched into the profitability and returns-on-investment for more than 150 companies in the country, and ranked them according to their turnover. Here we present the top 15. Companies engaged in mineral and agricultural exploitation lead the pack for best performing companies. State-owned corporations play a significant role, modelling the importance of size, asset and capital.

Our ranking reveals Société Nationale de Raffinage, SONARA to be the best performing company in the country with a turnover of US$ 540 million (CFA 270 billion). The oil and gas giants, Total Cameroon SA and Mobil Oil Cameroon SA, complement SONARA and make significant entry in our ranking, occupying the third and twelfth positions, with turn over in the range of US$ 308 million (CFA 154 billion) and US$ 126 million (CFA 63 billion), respectively. Foreign firms, some a little more than five years old in the country, seem to tear-through the business landscape doing brisk business. Amongst these are MTN Cameroon and Orange Cameroon SA occupying the sixth and tenth positions, respectively. MTN Cameroon, a South African subsidiary and a key player in the telecommunications sector scoops turnover of US$161 million (CFA 80 billion).  The choice of these foreign firms to make their presence in Cameroon is explained by Cameroon’s enviable position in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community, CEMAC sub-region. Almost 40% of the goods produced in the CEMAC sub-region are from Cameroon. The figure rises to 58% if oil production is excluded. Half of CEMAC’s population lives in Cameroon, and more than 40% of money in circulation in the region is in Cameroon. While Cameroon seems closed for business for the non-entrepreneurial civil-service minded nationals for whom government jobs have dried up and with no hope in sight other than packing bags and baggage, and heading towards the borders; for some profit-seeking entrepreneurs and wealth creators either indigenous or foreign, Cameroon has not been a bad bargain.

In an enviable second position is the beer manufacturing group, Société des Brasseries du Cameroun, SABC whose products are on the lip of 17 million Cameroonians, allowing the company to report a colossal turnover of US$ 328 million (CFA 164 billion). AES Sonel, formally wholly state-owned and now privatised with the national government being minority share-holder and America’s AES Sirocco a major partner, occupies the fourth position, unleashing the ‘goodness’ of privatisation with massive turnover of US$ 209 million (CFA 104 billion). AES Sonel provides a performance teaser and eye-opener for Cameroon Telecommunication Company, CAMTEL and Cameroon Airlines, CAMAIR currently on government’s list for immediate privatisation, as these stumbled on the eighth and ninth positions, reporting turnovers of about US$ 156 million (CFA 78 billion) and US$ 152 million (CFA 76 billion), respectively. Agroindustrial heavyweights, the Cotton Development Company, SODECOTON and Cameroon Development Corporation, CDC recoup turnovers of US$ 160 million (CFA 80 billion) and US$ 123 million (CFA 61.5 billion), occupying the seventh and fourteenth positions, respectively.

Rank	Firm	Activity	Turnover (US$ 000s)
1	SONARA	Oil & Gas	540,179
2	SABC	Beverages	328,557
3	TOTAL Cameroon	Oil & Gas	308,700
4	AES SONEL	Electricity	209,198
5	Group CFAO	Diverse	194,072
6	MTN Cameroon	Telecom	161,732
7	SODECOTON	Agroindustry	160,112
8	CAMTEL	Telecoms	156,604
9	CAMAIR	Airlines	152,792
10	Orange Cameroon	Telecoms	145,692
11	ALUCAM	metals	127,865
12	MOBIL Oil	Oil & Gas	126,774
13	Group PHP	Agroindustry	124,084
14	CDC	Agroindustry	123,426
15	CIMENCAM	Cement	118,127
Source: The Entrepreneur Newspaper, Cameroon

Aluminium Exploration and Manufacturing Company, ALUCAM’s exploitation of base metals and manufacturing of kitchen hardware generates significant turnover to the tune of US$ 127.8 million (CFA 64 billion), enough to sneak into the eleventh position in our ranking. With the construction of homes gaining momentum over the last five years, cement producer, CIMENCAM is at the centre of attraction and its product on high demand across the country and the CEMAC sub-region. With turnover of more than US$ 118 million, the existing potential in a burgeoning CEMAC sub-regional economy and expectation of a rise in the demand for its product in the next decade, CIMENCAM has the latitude to move up the ranking from the fifteenth position at par with ALUCAM and SODECOTON.

The performances of these firms have been aided by refurbished national laws, which are constantly reinforced, including the investment law. The new penal code adds more strength to the national laws and motivates the expansion of indigenous and foreign businesses in the country. Strangely, however, most foreign investors target the oil and gas sector, to the detriment of other profitable sectors in the country.

Oil production in Cameroon peaked in 1985 at 180,000 barrels a day, and has since fallen to 55,000 barrels a day. It is expected that output will fall much further and the country may become a net oil importer by the year 2017. The country currently possesses little acreage that could tempt oil and gas companies to invest. Undeveloped discoveries are generally small. However Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni and his government expect that a combination of more attractive terms of investment and high oil price will entice some development. Production on the country’s established fields is failing steadily as they become exhausted and there is little that can be done to reverse the trend. Hopes are rising, following the settlement between Cameroon and Nigeria on the Bakassi peninsula. Although the discovery of economically viable oil and gas reserves offshore Bakassi is by no means guaranteed, the area is widely considered to highly prospective and it borders on acreage that has already yielded numerous important discoveries in the heart of the Gulf of Guinea. Apart of the Bakassi peninsula, there are expectations of discoveries in the dry sandy-sahel portion in the northern part of the country. One area likely of interest to oil and gas companies such as Mobil, Texaco and Total Cameroon SA is the Logone Birni Basin, which is considered attractive but which has not been developed in previous years because of the absence of any means of exporting oil from the landlocked area. However, the Chad-Cameroon pipeline means the potential of a parallel spur pipeline to be constructed to tap any oil reserves on blocks OLHP-9 and OLHP-10 in the northern region.

Beyond oil and gas exploration, local and foreign entrepreneurs may exploit the immense opportunities in transportation & distribution, banking & finance, construction & real estate, tourism & leisure, media & telecommunication, beer & beverages, and agriculture. Cameroon’s diverse agricultural sector includes millet, sorghum, corn, cocoa, coffee, sugar cane, banana, rubber, pineapples, tropical woods and other food crops. It is rich in minerals including bauxite, nickel, uranium, gold, oil, natural gas, chalk, iron, copper and cobalt. The profitability of these investments could be enhanced by the strengthened banking sector. The banking sector has been overhauled and reorganised and is now much stronger. The overall improvement in the quality of the banking sector and the disengagement of the state has been welcomed by private investors and the international financial community, including IMF, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the African Development Bank. With the possibility of very high significant return-on-investment, Cameroon’s fallowing potentials beg for exploration, and the strides taken by the afore listed 15 companies echo not only David Viscott’s assertion, “in the end, the only people who fail are those who do not try”, but Colton’s inspiration as well, “Great minds must be ready not only to take opportunities, but to make them.”

© The Entrepreneur Newspaper 2007. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Can]

Hi,

Where can I find the entire 150 companies?

I am looking for information on Cameroon companies, sectoral breakdown and geographical distribution. Any information that you can direct me would be helpful.

Thanks

[Webedimbom John Tinshu]

Hi sir
We are a window to African industrial Projection to the world.

[TABOT]

I MAY BE IGONORANT BUT WHAT IS GOING ON WITH CAMAIR? IS THERE ANY SUCH THING AS CAMAIR ANY MORE?

[talkbusiness18@yahoo.com]

hi
well done cameroon, brasseries more richer than AES sonel, where is the cameroonian based company SABC plouging back its profits,can its banks reduces its interest rates on loans?
we are a subsidiary investor