Sikander Lalani

Sikander Lalani is a businessman, entrepreneur, industrialist, and former histopathologist in Uganda. He is reported to be one of the wealthiest individuals in that country.

He was born on 4 November 1944 at Nsambya Hospital in Kampala. He trained as a histopathologist and practiced for two years in the 1960s at the University College Hospital in London, United Kingdom.

He left medicine and opened a retail electronics store in Kigali, Rwanda, in the 1970s, specializing in the Philips brand. Later, he became a distributor of Goodyear tyres in Rwanda.

In 1976, his Japanese associates, who supplied him with electronics, introduced him to the idea of manufacturing metallic roofing materials in Rwanda. With the assistance of the Rwanda Development Bank, he successfully applied for a loan of US$1 million from the World Bank. In 1978, he set up a factory in Kigali, manufacturing roofing material. When genocide broke out in 1994, he left Rwanda for Tanzania. He then relocated to Uganda because of excessive bureaucracy in Tanzania.

Over the last two decades, Lalani has built a steel-manufacturing conglomerate in Uganda, consisting of three separate factories. His businesses are organized into the Roofings Group.

According to the New Vision newspaper in 2012, Lalani had a net worth of approximately US$100 million.

Lalani is married to Winnie Abotile Lalani. He is the father of eight children.