Michael Bartlett-Vanderpuye Discusses Latest News and Expansion Plans for M and C Group

Interview with Michael Bartlett-Vanderpuye, President and Chairman of M&C Group Global

What is the most strategic of your many projects?

The most important are gold mining, trading and exporting, and then real estate. Everybody knows that minerals are a safe haven for an investor. Minerals appreciate in value, so we are looking at developing our minerals trading platform. We are looking at end-to-end where we mine, refine and supply to our clients. Clients will have an option of getting refined gold, or maybe a minimum cut of about 22.5 where they can also get it refined to get whatever minerals are left. Enough for trading or jewelry or storing for banking purposes. Right now, central banks are trying to build gold reserves because it helps them against inflation and to boost their currency. M&C wants to come up with a one-stop shop where we mine and engage at a minus, we produce and refine at our end and then we export to any of our customers across the globe. We want to be a household name in Africa because we have seen from experience everywhere you go to do trading; people get their fingers burnt. But it is interesting to note that most of these people do not like to do research before getting into an industry. People actually think that we have what we call an African prize when it comes to gold. A gold price is formed by LME (London Metal Exchange) so most people who are going into a new gold business know that you cannot get somebody offering you huge discounts on gold. You only get so much now and then you need to refinance to be able to get it. If the price of gold is $60,000 per kilo today, it is the same price everywhere in the world. It does not change. The industry is very tough, but we are trying to build good credibility and make clients feel more comfortable. Those clients who have dealt with us in the past and listen to us do not have any issues. Those who do not listen to us and go for the cheaper prices and are blindfolded by greed, get screwed. They turn around and blame the African, or whoever the supplier is. We want to be a household name for gold globally, so we decided to expand our structures to meet with buyers or clients in the comfort of their homes. For instance, if we have a client in Dubai, they can come to visit us in our office in Dubai for local transactions. When I am dealing with a company in Ghana, in case of any disputes where you have different traditions of law, you have to refer to the ICC (International Criminal Court). But if it is a buyer buying contracts, it becomes a local transaction. Same thing with the Hong Kong and China offices. We are looking at Europe, we have set up in the US, so our US clients do not have to come to Ghana. They can visit our office in the US and have that kind of local feel where they make payments to this company, which is here, and we will take it from there.

You also have a food commodity business. Tell us more about it.

Everyone needs consumables, so we talked about it and decided to build our own food commodity brand. We applied for an international trademark and after two and half years, this year we got an approved name, Levan Foods. We are developing our own food commodity chain targeted to most African countries of course, and we will specialize in fast-moving commodities like rice, sugar, cooking oil, sardines, tinned tomatoes, toiletries, etc. Because it is our own brand, we are not only focusing on Ghana, but we are also focusing on other African countries and then based on standards set by Europe, we will go global. The advantage is to have our own brand that goes global, and we are hoping to launch that in December. We had a soft launch with Ghana rice, and we are also looking at doing packaging and how to make it look attractive. Of course, health-wise, everything has to be wholesome with the best standards accepted internationally.

And with your real estate division, how do you distinguish yourselves from the competition?

We do not do what everybody does. We do special tailored buildings for our clients. We build small communities; we build off plan and are able to sell quickly. We focus on prime areas. Our real estate is very unique. We focus on entities. For instance, we can collaborate with the military to build bungalows for them, we can collaborate with universities to build hostels and for the private sector we do some forms of tailor-made projects. Somebody has the land and we come in as equity partners.

What are some examples?

We completed two 16-unit projects, Deen and Zak, and we have another lakeside one called Xylis, which is eight units of four-bedroom townhomes that we are working on. For clients outside of the country, we have land where we build tailor-made projects for them. We do smaller, secure, gated communities. Most of the people we build for are outside Ghana and they want to set up something before they come home. We give them advice on what kind of houses to build so that they can have their home and still use it for Airbnb to generate income when they are not in the country. We build in the form of apartments with interlocking rooms so when they are not there, we lock one room. If it is a three-bedroom unit, we lock one room and use the rest for Airbnb.

What are some of the success stories within your group across different sectors?

Everyone has their own way of defining success. For me, I am successful if my client is happy. It is not about recognition of being awarded because I have won a lot of international awards. I am humbled and appreciate it. Among the awards were most respected CEO in Soft Metals last year. We won the Trading Company of the Year last year and this month, I won the CEO of the Year for Trading and Logistics. We won Energy Trading Company of the Year for the last two years. I won the Young African Icon award in the US for my business. But all of this means nothing to me unless my clients are happy, they are satisfied, and they give me referrals. Most of my clients think I am too strict when it comes to business because I like to follow procedures. Most of them feel that I like too much paperwork, but from my financial background, I always follow the audit trail because when something goes wrong you need that. For instance, I do not do business on WhatsApp where you just close a deal on it. I want you to send me an email so there is an audit trail. My paperwork is very detailed and very demanding because you realize that sometimes when the transaction starts everybody is happy, but if something goes wrong, they point fingers at you saying maybe you connived with somebody to do A, B, or C. We give you all the documents to complete so you know what you are signing. We even translate them into your language if it is hard to understand. If you do not speak English very well but speak French, we do the contract in French or Arabic. There is no perfect system, and we have had our challenges, but in all of it there is your paperwork, the paper trail and the audit trail that vindicates it. Opinions are formed and you cannot take them from people’s minds, but you let your good work speak for you. We have had clients who did not listen to us, they lost money and still came back to us because they realized if they had followed what we told them they would not have been found wanting. When you come to M&C, we do not force you to do business with us. We advise you on the procedures to follow in any business you want to venture into, which is within our domain. When you come in for a gold business, we advise you to look out for pricing, we advise you to check with the regulator and whether whoever you are dealing with is licensed.

What is your international reach?

In Asia, we have a Hong Kong-registered company, we have an office in Wanyu, China. In the UAE, we are based in Dubai. We are in South Africa, and we are setting up in Liberia soon. In Europe, we are trying to set up in Switzerland and then Madrid because we have clients who want to have an M&C franchise there. We recently set up in the US, in Oklahoma, but we are going to set up the same thing in D.C. That is our global reach at the moment. It is not just about opening offices in various countries, no, it is added value of going to a market where you are needed. Somebody wanted us to set up in Portugal, but we said no because it is not centralized.

What is your medium-term mission for the group over the next three years?

My dream is still ongoing. I am at about 10% of what my potential is to achieve, and I am just 41 years old. My vision is to have a one-stop shop, end-to-end verifiable source to finish for gold. I have my refinery license and have started constructing a gold refinery with a 100kg capacity as the M&C Gold and Precious Metals Refinery. The whole idea is to have gold supplied from our mines, refined in our own refinery, and exported on our own license to our clients outside. To be number 1 when it comes to genuine and credible gold sourcing and trading. In the food commodity chain, yes, we are new, but in the next three years I want Levan Foods to be a household name. Everywhere you go, there should be Levan products there. We have done extensive market research doing competitive analysis for the last three years so that we know what we are up against and what our competitors are doing so we will have the advantage. That is one of our huge dreams because food commodities can go from generation to generation. I am not building M&C for myself; I am building it for the next two generations to come. The same thing with our real estate segment. We are open to any form of business opportunity that comes our way. During the pandemic, we switched from doing general sorts of products to selling PBs. We leveraged our office in China, not just for gold, but also for general supplies because China has the lowest cost of labor for production, and you can send it to any market. We are also looking at the Istanbul market, but we have not set up any distributors. Globally we are looking at commencing M&C affiliate companies and being the number 1 one-stop shop that will handle everything for us.

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