At the helm of Compagnie sahélienne d’entreprises for almost a decade, the head of Senegal’s leading construction and public works company is now engaged in the work of a lifetime: transforming the group founded by his father into one of continuity.
Senegal’s leading public works group
A construction boom that has naturally benefited operators in the sector. These include Compagnie sahélienne d’entreprises (CSE), Senegal’s leading public works group, which has been involved in a number of major projects: Blaise-Diagne international airport in Diass, rehabilitation work on the Ndioum-Thilogne trunk road, construction of the regional express train (TER), the northern highway (VDN), a sanitation project for the city of Dakar, the Kolda bridge in Casamance… Together, the group’s ten or so companies now generate annual sales of around 200 billion CFA francs (300 million euros) and account for almost 5,000 jobs.
A major company in West Africa’s construction and public works sector, but not used to being in the spotlight. During an initial telephone conversation early one morning in August, CSE Chairman Oumar Sow set the tone straightaway: “My father [Aliou Sadio Sow, founder of CSE, editor’s note] was wary of journalists and never spoke to them. We’ve more or less retained this reflex. In the family, discretion is the watchword,” recalls the CSE boss, who is as quiet in the media as he is powerful in the Senegalese business world. His voice is benevolent, however, and his comments more akin to a factual description of a character trait than a real aversion to the “breed” of journalists. The entrepreneur is ready to tell his share of the truth. And perhaps, beyond that, to convey certain messages that are close to his heart.
When Oumar Sow was born in Abidjan in August 1962, the sun of independence was at its zenith. Two years earlier, seventeen African states had liberated themselves from the colonial yoke, and many contemporaries of the time still remember the opening words of the speech by Ivorian President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, solemnly proclaiming his country’s independence on August 7, 1960. “For you, O my country, my beloved country, the long-awaited hour has come when your destiny belongs entirely to you”. An exhortation to become the master of one’s own destiny, which a generation of ambitious Africans would make their own.
The origins of the family saga
Aliou Sadio Sow was born in Fouta, northern Senegal, but raised partly in Mali by his older brother Oumar, who joined the French colonial army. A Peul by training, he worked in Côte d’Ivoire as an executive for the oil major Shell, and could count on the unfailing support of his wife, Khadijatou Diawara, a mixed-race Ivorian of Malian origin, who was none other than the younger sister of Mohamed Tiecoura Diawara, President Houphouët-Boigny’s Minister of Planning. The couple would have six children, including Oumar, the eldest, who thus bears the same first name as his paternal uncle.
Competent and hard-working, Aliou Sow soon realized that, beyond a certain threshold in the corporate hierarchy, there was a glass ceiling for Africans. In Western companies operating on the continent at the time, management positions were almost exclusively reserved for “toubabs” (the name given to Europeans in Wolof, the main language spoken in Senegal). However, the man was not one to suffer the vagaries of history and social inertia, and so he forced his destiny at the first opportunity. This was when the French public works company Fougerolle decided to set up a subsidiary in Senegal, alongside a local partner it was looking for. Informed of the opportunity by his banker and friend Amadou Sow – the head of the now defunct Union sénégalaise de banques – who provided him with the 5 million CFA francs needed to acquire a 45% stake (equal to the 45% held by Fougerolle) in the capital of the new company – Compagnie sénégalaise d’entreprises – the new entrepreneur threw himself wholeheartedly into the new venture. Business soon took off, and over the years the company became a major player in the construction sector, before expanding into public works (roads, earthworks, sanitation, hydraulics, etc.). Six years later, Aliou Sow finally took control of the company, buying out the shares of his partner Fougerolle (now Eiffage) and renaming the company Compagnie sahélienne d’entreprises. The extraordinary saga of CSE was launched.
Having reached the pinnacle of success, Aliou Sow never forgot this decisive stroke of fate, personified by the solicitude of his financial friend at the decisive moment. Years later, loyal and grateful, the founder of CSE appointed Amadou Sow to head his board of directors, a position he held until his death in May 2016. A greatness of spirit that the man applied on a large scale, through the many social works he undertook for many of his company’s employees and Senegalese in need. All with the utmost discretion. As always. This philanthropic work lives on today through the Alioune Sow Foundation, an internal structure of the CSE Group financed from its own funds.
Work, a cardinal value
Meanwhile, the children are growing up in the family home in the Hann Marinas district of Dakar’s Bel-Air commune. A cosy, protected setting where the value of hard work is never far away. At weekends, the patriarch takes to the company’s construction sites with his children, the eldest – led by Oumar – observing their father chatting with the workers here, enquiring about the progress of work with the foremen there, or pointing out points that could be corrected further down the line. These site visits are not exactly to the liking of the people concerned. “We were kids and all we wanted to do was enjoy our free time and have fun. So this kind of outing wasn’t our cup of tea. But without telling us anything, our father already had his plan, which was to have us observe the real world and learn from it. In short, he wanted to prepare us for life”, recalls Oumar Sow today. Long-time family friend and Senegalese designer Bibi Seck remembers the “strict” upbringing provided by the “Borom kër” (Wolof for head of the family). An inclination towards rigor and austerity that largely forged the character of the Sow sons – Ardo and Mohammed in particular – whom Bibi Seck describes as “focused on their work, reserved and very little given to socializing”.
A student of the Marist Fathers, young Oumar passed his baccalaureate in 1980 and left for France, where he enrolled in the HEC business school. “The most difficult year of my life,” confesses the head of CSE. Indeed, here more than anywhere else, excellence comes at a high price: grueling workweeks, long and frequent exams, abysmal grades, a military service atmosphere, a constant ranking system, a social life reduced to a mere pittance… After a year, the young man left France with no displeasure and set off to make his mark elsewhere in the vast world. He set his sights on America. His first choice was the University of California (UCLA) in Los Angeles, then New York University – Stern School of Business, followed by another New York institution, Pace University, where he earned an MBA in Finance.
With his studies behind him, the school of life began. On September 28, 1987, Oumar Sow was solemnly welcomed by his father in his father’s office in Dakar. “Out of a sense of filial duty”, the eldest of the Sow siblings made the conscious decision to join the family business. It’s a decision that two of Oumar’s younger brothers would later make as well. Ardo, the youngest, is currently number two at CSE, while Mohamed heads up Société dakaroise immobilière et d’habitation (SDIH), one of the group’s real estate subsidiaries. Of the Sow sons, only Yérim, the highly secretive head of Groupe Teyliom (hotels, real estate, banking, beverages, etc.), tried his hand at entrepreneurship outside the family fold. With the success we all know.
Starting out in the family business
Looking back on that fateful day when he first joined the family business, the CSE boss recalls with emotion “a powerful moment”. On that day, Aliou Sow, the tutelary figure through whom everything began, made it clear to the person who would one day succeed him that his success within the company would depend first and foremost on his ability to stay focused on the essentials, “rigour and hard work”. In short, that it was important to always rise to the occasion. A life ethic that would serve as a guiding principle for Oumar in the decades that followed. A Senegalese peer working in the building and public works sector who has known the CSE boss for almost forty years describes him as a man “imbued with a keen sense of responsibility”. The man himself, who sometimes feels “hostage to his destiny”, admits quite openly that in another life, his career choices would certainly have been different.
For the time being, the young man faces an initial challenge: in a public works business dominated by engineers and their technical jargon, the Sow son’s financial background is certainly valuable expertise, but it alone cannot serve as a free pass. Oumar Sow knows that he will have to climb the ladder one by one, on merit. After starting out as an executive assistant, he was sent to Sierra Leone after a year as administrative manager of a CSE agency managing the construction of a road. “It was a particularly formative experience,” recalls the head of the Senegalese public works group. He then returned to head office in Dakar before being appointed country manager in Guinea Conakry in 1994. Another key date in his career. Now in direct contact with the senior administration (ministers, cabinet directors, treasury officials, etc.) of a government that is a major customer, the heir to the family quickly learns the codes of this cunning and complex world, where it is necessary to excel in the art of diplomacy while having a fine mastery of the psychology of men.
The heir’s rise to power
Later, under President Abdoulaye Wade, a new generation of ministers of the same age as Oumar Sow came into office. The Sow heir quickly became their privileged contact within CSE, and was soon after appointed deputy managing director of the group. The founder of CSE, while remaining the tutelary figure of the company and the architect of the strategic orientations that preside over its destiny, gradually passed the baton to his son. Nevertheless, the man who built the group continued to give his opinion and to amaze right up to the end with his ‘vista’, his ability to quickly detect the essential point or the flaw in the armour of a business. “The best school”, says Oumar Sow, recalling with pride that he worked “thirty years, almost to the day”, alongside his father.
On 23 August 2017, the founder of CSE passed away at the age of 84 at the American Hospital in Paris. “Saddened by this sad news”, the Senegalese President paid tribute to the memory of an “emblematic figure” and “a model of tenacity and constancy in the quest for excellence”. In practice, the succession is going smoothly. After all, it has been prepared for a very long time, with the Sow sons already working within CSE for decades, while the group has been structured as a holding company since 2015, with Oumar occupying the position of Chairman of the Management Board during Aliou Sow’s lifetime.
The real challenge for the heir lies elsewhere: he has to follow in the footsteps of the previous generation and defend the continuity of the work that was started, while at the same time asserting his own uniqueness and his own choices, which are contingent on the challenges of his time. It’s a delicate alchemy to find, and one that, quite logically, doesn’t always work. Indeed, contemporary history is full of examples of successions gone awry. In Burkina Faso, there was the slow decline of the Oumarou Kanazoé group after the death of its founder; in Cameroon, the Fotso family empire was torn apart by quarrels between heirs, while elsewhere, the liquidation of Jean-Luc Lagardère’s legacy by his son Arnaud is making headlines in the French press. Not to mention – examples much more vivid in the collective imagination of the Senegalese – the complicated successions of El Hadj Babacar Kébé and Djily Mbaye, two of the country’s great businessmen, who died in 1984 and 1991 respectively. With the Sow family, there’s none of that: the family ship is steadfastly at the helm and firmly on course.
A solid, dedicated team of employees
In this new chapter of the family saga, the Chairman of the CSE Group can count on a solid and dedicated team of collaborators, led by his brothers Ardo and Mohamed. Not forgetting the loyal Birane Wane, Oumar Sow’s special adviser, Massamba Guèye, the CSE group’s general secretary, Aliou Niasse, the CSE’s deputy general manager, and Babacar Diop, the CSE’s administrative director, who trained Oumar in the business when he was still a student. A discreet engineer like his father Aliou Sow, Ardo is the master of operations, the man who “gets his hands in the cement” and discusses technical aspects with customers and in-house staff, while Oumar is “in charge of feeding work [the constant hunt for new contracts, editor’s note] into the CSE group and getting paid by customers”. In fact, this division of roles says as much about the complementary nature of the expertise of each individual as it does about the overall functioning of CSE, where the management style is described as “collegial and consensual” by one of the group’s executives. A rather flattering description, which also seems to apply to Oumar Sow’s character. Contacted by Forbes Afrique, Moustapha Ndiaye, a well-known Dakar notary and childhood friend of Oumar’s, praised the executive’s “loyalty in friendship” and “sense of self-sacrifice”. Others close to Oumar mention his “open-mindedness”, “ability to listen” and “resilience”. He can, however, have a “bipolar side and lose his temper if he’s upset”, laughs his friend Bibi Seck, who nonetheless points out that “the wind blows back very quickly and there are never any hard feelings”.
In the business world, on the other hand, where the dynamics of relationships are by definition different from those of family and friends, opinions are more nuanced. While acknowledging his “jovial and pleasant nature”, one sector executive points out that he will have “no qualms about joining forces with another partner and forgetting about you” if he feels that his company’s interests are at stake. The same source concedes, however, that the CSE boss will be “the first to call you if he learns that someone close to you is unwell”. In short, “a tough boss in business, but fundamentally endearing”, concludes our source.
The difficulties of the job
In fact, it’s sometimes necessary to have a tough hide and fight to get things done. The issue of debt collection, always problematic when your customer is the state, is a good illustration of this. Despite repeated reminders, “it can sometimes take five or six months between completion of the work and the expected payment”, points out the Chairman of CSE’s Management Board. During this time, however, “you have to meet your various commitments [salaries, suppliers to be paid, etc.], in particular by calling on the banks for cash flow requirements, and therefore bear the associated cost of credit [around 8-9% per annum]”, laments the contractor, who adds that he sometimes has the impression that he is working “just to make the bankers live”. Faced with a client of this stature, financial institutions in Dakar are quick to grant financing lines. You only lend to the rich. Nonetheless, “at times like these, the stress of work inevitably brings it back home”, confides the interested party who, as soon as he can, leaves the Senegalese capital for his villa in Pointe-Sarène, where he likes to recharge his batteries in the relaxing company of renowned artists (including Ivorian sculptor Jems Koko Bi, Togolese visual artist Sadikou Oukpedjo and Dakar painter Omar Ba).
Over the past few years, CSE has also had to contend with the deteriorating security situation in the Sahel region and increased political instability in many of the countries where it previously operated. Once active in a large part of the West African sub-region, the company has gradually scaled back its operations in this area (leaving Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso), refocusing on its home market of Senegal and, to a lesser extent, on Sierra Leone, an English-speaking country of 9 million inhabitants, where it now concentrates its second pole of activity. For Oumar Sow, this decision makes good sense, as “moving away from your home base often means having less control over things”. New contracts are, however, “about to be finalized in two countries in the sub-region”, confides the interested party, who will say no more. A pragmatist, the head of CSE knows that business is a moving target, and that it’s often preferable not to reveal (all) one’s cards. In the meantime, this geographic retreat has enabled CSE to improve its profitability, which has been on the rise in recent years. When questioned on the subject, Oumar Sow prefers to remain evasive, but indicates that “we are in line with the margins of international operators in the sector”. Obliged to publish their financial results, the major listed groups in the construction industry (Vinci, Bouygues, Eiffage, ACS…), for their part, post a net profitability of between 3% and 5% of their sales.
La menace chinoise
But today’s successes are no guarantee of tomorrow’s prosperity. And the line between a potential good deal and a proven dead loss is often a fine one. Especially when there is another, more insidious threat hanging over the industry: the fierce competition from Chinese companies. It’s a fact: well beyond Senegal, the strike power of construction and public works operators from the Middle Kingdom is now indisputable on the continent. In its latest sector study, Africa Construction Trends, Deloitte points out that in 2021, the relative share of Chinese groups in the total number of African projects worth more than 50 million dollars (47 million euros) (462 projects recorded for a total value of 521 billion dollars, or nearly 500 billion euros) stood at 27.1%, a higher percentage than that of all private African operators (25.3%) and companies from the European Union (11.5%).
Benefiting from the support of financial institutions such as the Exim Bank of China, the China Development Bank and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) – which are all tools at the service of Beijing’s international ambitions – a number of major Chinese construction and public works operators are subsidised on the export market and can therefore undercut prices to win tenders. This policy of “dumping” has a serious impact on domestic players. “While we bid for tenders by calculating a small margin above our cost price, Chinese companies can snatch up tenders by subtracting the subsidies received from that price”, says Oumar Sow, who, as chairman of the Senegalese employers’ association’s building and public works section, is also the spokesman for local operators in the sector.
Gérard Sénac, Honorary Chairman of Eiffage Sénégal, agrees with the CSE boss. While acknowledging the Chinese’s “speed of execution”, the former director of the French construction giant’s Senegalese subsidiary also regrets this “distortion of competition”. Worse still, in the case of tenders won by Chinese companies, “local subcontracting and the employment of African workers is virtually non-existent”, laments the Frenchman, for whom “training and employment issues should be paramount”. In fact, in addition to importing materials directly from Asia, many Chinese construction companies still rely heavily on their own workforce.
The local content law, a precedent to be replicated
It’s hardly surprising, then, that Senegal’s construction and public works industry feels undermined and unprotected in the face of the giants from the Middle Kingdom. Baïdy Agne, President of the National Employers’ Council (CNP), the country’s main employers’ organisation, since 2002, is calling for “a more balanced formula” which, while allowing competition, “makes sense for local economic operators”. Citing the law on local content that already exists in Senegal and is designed to create niches for partnerships and investment for national companies in the emerging hydrocarbons sector, the CNP boss believes that it would be appropriate to “replicate this system” to defend the interests of national players in the building and public works sector. This is a suggestion that Oumar Sow is also actively defending, pointing out that “dialogue with the country’s authorities on this subject is well under way”. Asked about his political leanings, the entrepreneur denied belonging to any particular party, but did admit to having affinities with Senegal’s current head of state, Macky Sall, “a friend of twenty years”. The question was quickly dismissed, however.
To protect the group from the onslaught of too much head-on competition in its traditional businesses, the head of CSE is now aiming to speed up the development of new business lines. As a result, the company is now present across the entire chain of operations linked to the construction sector (engineering structures, building, property development, water and sewerage, etc.) via its ten or so specialist subsidiaries (CSE Granulats, Soseter, Sismar, CSE Immobilier, SDIH, etc.). Sensing an opportunity, the Chairman of the CSE Management Board has also entered the energy sector, with its two dedicated subsidiaries, CSE Energies – which is developing a 250-megawatt power plant project with two Senegalese partner companies – and Ecsen, which provides maritime transport and consignment services to oil and gas operators. This sector is booming in Senegal, with the Grand Tortue Ahmeyim and Sangomar fields due to come on stream in 2024. And one that has benefited fully from the law on local content…
Protecting a life’s work
In the end, the most important thing for the head of Senegal’s leading building and civil engineering company – guarantor of the family empire – is that, over and above the cyclical ups and downs of the business, he has been able to protect and build on his father’s life’s work. The father of four children (Naomi, Khadija, Mounir and Aliou Warren) from two different unions, Oumar Sow nevertheless recognizes that “the construction industry is a tough world and not for everyone”. His two eldest daughters, Naomi and Khadija, may already be working within the group, but the entrepreneur knows that being entrusted with the keys to the empire by the previous generation is both a great honor and a crushing burden to bear.
Perhaps it’s enough to fuel the desire for a different kind of existence, one less burdened by the burdens of responsibility and freer from convention. It’s only a short step from there to saying that the company could one day be controlled by shareholders other than the Sow heirs. The head of CSE remains tight-lipped on the subject, but says he has “already been approached” and remains “open to discussion”. One thing is certain: despite stiff competition, CSE remains the number one player in Senegal’s construction and public works sector – a dynamic market – and beyond that, one of the leading African groups in the UEMOA zone. An attractive configuration that has not escaped the attention of the sector’s giants.
Torchbearer
In terms of assets, at least, the CSE boss can already congratulate himself on having put (some of) his eggs in the same basket as a wise investor, his brother Yerim. Alongside the head of the Teyliom group, the eldest Sow has a stake in Bridge Bank – an Ivorian financial institution focusing on corporate clients – as well as in Senegalese operator Free, which in August came under the control of the Axian group, owned by Hassanein Hiridjee from Madagascar. Oumar Sow swears, however, that he is “not motivated by money”.
No, the entrepreneur has far more stimulating projects than wanting to “end up the richest man in the cemetery”. An insatiable collector (more than 400 works scattered among his various residences) and owner of the Dakar gallery Quatorzerohuit, located a stone’s throw from Place de l’Indépendance, Oumar Sow could well see himself commissioning a book project that would draw up a detailed inventory of all his pieces. And why not one day “open a private museum”; a dedicated place where he could exhibit his many favorites. When asked why, he replies: “to pass on a legacy to my children”. An attitude of “passing on the torch”, well aware of the passage of time, that the founder of the CSE group would certainly not have disavowed.
