Billionaire mogul, Chief Kessington Adebukunola Adebutu has exceeded all expectations with his astonishing volume of successes as a businessman. Now we know that his third son, Adebisi Abidemi Adebutu is a chip off the old block. Like his old man, debonair Adebisi has turned a serial entrepreneur, who has also become a portfolio investor with more than a passing interest in creative engineering solutions.
Like most of his siblings, Adebisi – the third of Adebutu’s 12 childre – also started his career with the family owned business, Premier Lotto in 1990 as business development officer, and rose to become the Executive Director, Operations and Business Development. As the Executive Director, Adebisi led the implementation of several initiatives, which grew the family business to a multi-billion-naira operation. But he has also been doing his own thing, and doing greatly. Adebisi has always been a solution provider. He has led strategic investments and turnaround of various business interests in the telecommunication, hospitality and infrastructure sector. As a tech enthusiast, Adebisi has invested in the telecoms sector through Biswal Limited, a company he floated in 2001 and in a couple of years, his company has emerged one of the leading telecom support service providers in West Africa. Not a few are aware of his quiet, but impactful role in the acquisition of the Ogun State-owned Gateway Hotels, Abeokuta by his wealthy magnate dad and the transformation of the facility —now known as Park Inn by Radisson— to a proud 5-Star 400-room hospitality outfit. In between the execution of that, Adebisi’s innovative real estate development and investment group, First Investment Development Company, FIDC, got a bigger deal to develop the upscale Ilubirin Foreshore Housing project, a new luxury Lagos coastal neighbourhood started under Babatunde Raji Fashola administration as Lagos State Governor. Despite the controversies that trailed and nearly stalled it, Adebisi’s company is still on course to deliver the ambitious project. While still on that, the scion of the gaming mogul set his eyes on aviation infrastructure management, which culminated in the recent announcement of his FIDC alongside a consortium of investors as the preferred bidder for the concession of the Asaba International Airport. Hoopla actually trailed the announcement of Adebisi’s FIDC as the concessionaire, especially the amount involved in the whole deal and doubt about his company’s competence and pedigree in handling such a project given the controversial Ilubirin project in Lagos. But this was doused by the state government’s belief that the emergence of Adebisi’s FIDC as the concessionaire, would turn around the fortunes and profile of the strategic airport. Adebisi and his partners are forging ahead to deliver on their mandate to rebrand the airport and make it one of the best within the continent. They have revealed plans to expend at least N28 billion on various developmental investments on the airport over the 30-year concession period.