Discussing Partnership Opportunities with Roni Gaby Mattouk, CEO of ARG 1 Africa

Roni Gaby Mattouk, CEO of ARG 1 Africa, shares the story of the elevator engineering company and discusses partnership opportunities for the future.

“ARG 1 is now in its 12th year. The initials stand for my grandfather, my father and myself. We started it with $3,000 start-up capital on a plastic chair and plastic table in a borrowed warehouse. We were blessed with our first job with a successful businessman to install an elevator, and that was the steppingstone. Along the way, we decided to invest in human capital and today we have 250 staff and we turnover close to $12 million. Our offices have grown, but our principles are still the same. We only invest in people. We do not acquire land; we have not built a head office. We invest in the people and in the market and so far, it is working. The banks do not like it, but it is working”, says Roni Gaby Mattouk.

“I still own 100% of the company myself and we have no partners, even though for the first six or seven years we were exploring opportunities to invite investors to join. Unfortunately, in the environment in which we live in Ghana, we are not an appetizing entity for the larger companies. So how do we grow it? We basically have kept the little profit we are making in the business. I did not take out any dividend, I did not have any savings account, we did not syphon any funds to an overseas country like a lot of foreigners who come in do when they make a dollar, they take it back. Ghana is home, so everything has stayed in the company and that is how we grew an internal cash flow. We have been able to guarantee all of our agreements, we have not defaulted in payments; salaries are 100% paid. Even during COVID, ARG 1 paid 100% salaries during lockdown. At the end of the day, if the rewards of ARG are not used in times like the pandemic, then what is the sense in that? We would be interested in exploring what we refer to as strategic investors. We are not looking for cash injections, we are looking to partner experience, knowledge, exposure to other markets and to learn more. Not specifically financing. Maybe an engineering entity, maybe an entity that can provide ARG 1 Africa with financial instruments. We have opened all of our letters of credit in Ghana, all of our financial bonds are from Ghana and the fees the banks charge are very high. They average 2% to 3%, whereas in Europe to open a letter of credit you are looking at 0.2%, so just by having a strategic partner to offer financial documents, we would immediately save 2% to 2.5% per document. If you are turning over €5 million or €6 million times 2% to 3%, that is the sort of partner we are looking for to grow further”, he adds.

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