Valuation of all assets held in the companies: FCFA 92 billion/ USD 165 million

Workforce: over 3,000 employees

Principal company: Compagnie Ivoirienne de Coton (COIC)

Koné Daouda SOUKPAFOLO is a prosperous businessman and trader from Korhogo, the largest city in northern Côte d'Ivoire. Coming from a family of 14 children, young Daouda, already motherless, lost his father in 1993. He thus became the head of the family, taking care of everyone through the family business he managed.

He gained recognition during the 2005-2006 campaign through the agricultural professional organization (OPA) "Yebe Wognon," which he owns. At a time when the ginning company LCCI (La Compagnie cotonnière de Côte d’Ivoire), a subsidiary of the L’Aiglon group, was threatened with bankruptcy, he was concerned about not having a factory for processing the cotton production of "Yebe Wognon." This led him to the idea of creating a ginning company: the Compagnie ivoirienne de coton (COIC). This project's realization coincided with the bankruptcy of LCCI, from which he took over two factories. "Certainly, we were able to eventually acquire two other factories from the former LCCI, but since one of them is very outdated, we think that our future factory will not be too much!" he explained in one of his rare interviews in 2008.

In 2017, with the takeover of the Compagnie ivoirienne pour le développement des textiles (CIDT), Daouda Soukpafolo established himself as the national leader of the cotton sector in Côte d'Ivoire. That same year, CIDT's production for the 2017-2018 campaign reached 65,000 tons, more than double the 32,000 tons produced annually before its acquisition. He invested significant amounts to rehabilitate three units (in Séguéla, Bouaké, and Mankono) of the company. In 2019, the ginning factories' capacities were estimated at 120,000 tons.

It should be noted that the cotton company COIC ranked in the top 10 largest privately-owned companies in Côte d'Ivoire in 2021 according to Sika Finance. Koné Daouda Soukpafolo is a shareholder (generally a majority one, if not the sole one) in about ten companies in various sectors including construction, agri-food, and transportation.

Source : Sika Finance