One of Kenya's wealthiest citizens Narendra Raval caught the attention of Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote in 2018 where their talks reportedly veered towards the offer from Dangote to purchase his hugely successful company in Kenya.
The billionaire, talking to Jeff Koinange and Victoria Rubadiri on September 9, 2018, narrated that though he had received the offer to have the company bought off, he had declined because of his convictions and the general outlook of the company.
"Once you create something, it becomes next to your heart. Second thing, my company has a policy of a lot of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and I am thus not so much about money but the people and the society around us," he narrated.
CSR is a self-regulating business model that helps a company be socially accountable to itself, stakeholders, and the public.
According to CSR expert Mallen Baker, companies needed to answer to two aspects of their operations; management - both in terms of people and processes (the inner circle), and also the nature of, and quantity of their impact on society.
Narendra told his Citizen TV host that his biggest worry was also giving the company out to the public while he was not sure how it would perform, in effect robbing people of their hard-earned cash and trust.
"I want to go public when I am sure that the company can and will be able to give better returns to the people," he stated, noting that the company was yet to reach the heights he had anticipated.
He narrated his dream of making Kenya's steel industry import free by pushing for the exploitation of the country's iron ore reserves.
"I have a dream to make Kenya import-free, and then I will strive to ensure that the shareholder gets proper returns from my company. I will be more worried by taking the people's money if I am not able to be the best custodian," Raval stated.
As of 2018, Forbes estimated Raval's net worth at around Ksh40 billion, and his steel company, Devki, is estimated to be generating billions in revenue every year.
