‘An investor without investment objectives is like a traveler without a destination.’ – Ralph Seger
This week, the big thing that happened to me was meeting with Chief Falomo. Who is he?
Most important and relevant to us is, he is the Chairman of the Board of Investment 1971 limited, what you would call an investment club that was started in 1971!
I have considered setting up an investment club and working on the modalities as we speak, and needed to find out more about it.
So I read the book -Investment Practice and Prospects in Nigeria. I know, the title is not so attractive and can sound like a thesis but it had invaluable information!
When my friend Tomie Balogun (recall she spoke at last year’s summit and the workshop) shared a part of this book that referred to the portfolio of Investment 1971 Ltd increasing to over 200m in 2008, I was intrigued.
Long story short, I noticed one of my client’s name was on the list of original members and even part of the board! I could not believe it. I sought out a member of the family as the original subscriber is late and they couldn’t find information on it.
So I turned to my father to see if he recognized some of the names in the book. he recognized a few but surprise he knew the Chairman within his network! In days, my father connected with him and I got the appointment!
I spent quite some time with him this week and departed promising to come to interview him for the Invest for Wealth Club, to share his experience of 48 years of investing in the club. They have helped set up other clubs too that are several years old.
I do not know about you but I do not think I could have found a better mentor for the Invest for Wealth Club [I4W Club]!
P.S Investment 1971 was able to share over N200million naira in dividends in recent years to it’s members!
The best part? They invested for only 5 years! So the returns they are enjoying almost 50 years after, is actually from the money put together from the first 5 years. I was stunned. Power of compounding over time and having a focus!
He talked about the mistakes and learnings from some investments they made. There was a learning curve and my best part was the Investment Committee and panels to review investments. Its all in the book. I noted this and plan to make this part of the I4W Club.
The funniest part? Chief Falomo doesn’t call it investment clubs and neither does my father. Once I returned, my father was intrigued to know what I had been discussing with Chief for hours. My father then says to me, he has a similar investment ooooo. He proceeds to bring out a file with information on how they started and what it was invested in. I was stunned. So I have another template to work with!
It was right there under my nose. To be honest, I am still struggling with why our parents do not share information on money with us and we have to drag it out of them even when we are almost 40 years! But thank God I got this information now. Better late than never.
So ‘my fellow Nigerians’, are you interested in joining me as I launch the Invest for Wealth Club [I4W Club]? If yes, send an email.
If you would like to get a copy of the book, it comes in 2 formats, the soft paper-back copy for N5,000 and the hardback copy for N7,500. Send me an email and I can arrange for it.
I am excited about the future. What about you?
P.S I tend to want to collate the juicy stories but life keeps happening that I hardly get around to telling my stories as planned. One of the things I am dealing with is procrastination in the guise of ‘perfection’. So I decided to share this as is.
What do you think?
Tolu Dima-Okojie