Author: Opinion

Mergers and acquisitions worth US$52B were completed in South Africa during the first half of 2021, with the value of deals growing by 958% from 2020 with the tech sector in the lead according to Refinitiv Data that provides financial markets and infrastructure data . According to Digest Africa, the value of mergers and acquisitions in the African tech ecosystem in 2018 was US$504M with 24 out of the 39 deals taking place in South Africa making it the country with the most mergers, acquisitions and exits among the KINGS countries. …

East African Breweries Plc is seeking to raise KSh11Bn shortly after they retired their KSh6Bn Medium Term Note (MTN) on the 28th of June. (The early redemption was averred as part of their balance sheet and costs of funds optimization).

The five-year tenure – with an interest rate of 12.25 per cent p.a. – was in line with our projection of a near term corporate bond issue.

The rationale behind this was the contemporary high costs attached to the alternative sources of income against the backdrop of the pandemic impact on the macroeconomic environment.…

The reason there is so much interest in Latin America as an investment destination is that there is little value left in seed and early stage companies in North America, Europe and even India.

Over the coming years LatAm will also lose its appeal as valuations start to exceed value. There is therefore no doubt that the next geographical location in which this arbitrage will be practised is sub-Saharan Africa.…

Yet for SME and corporate lending, credit decisions remain an extended process as information is gathered manually and appraised over, sometimes, weeks, to establish the creditworthiness of the borrower.

The need to abandon such cumbersome processes has recently seen leading banks adopt technology, such as our CreditQuest, to automate credit origination, and manage credit workflow, appraisals, documents, customer ratings and credit decisions.

This kind of technology draws all current and historical credit data onto a unified platform, giving the bank’s analysts a true single customer view of credits and collaterals.…

In most OECD countries, commercialization of research and innovation is very commonplace and is a foundation to establish national, region and global tech and industrial titans.
Where is Africa with this strategy? And, how can Africa engage and attract its diaspora professionals to scale ground breaking research innovations that can scale and solve local problems?
Furthermore, these African researchers work on projects that have the potential to impact Africa and mankind. Think about all the lifesaving medications we take every day, yes, an African researcher may have research or an innovation in Life Science that could save thousands or even millions of lives per year. In tropic Africa, we have the largest biodiversity in the world – can an enzyme from a plant with the help from the latest Artificial Intelligence, come up with the next billion-dollar drug? …

PAGA, a payment processing company in Nigeria (similar to PAYPAL) started by Tayo Oviosu in 2009 is on track to potentially be the next unicorn as it processed $2.3 billion worth of transactions in 2020 and $8 billion during the past four years. The company is now expanding into Ethiopia and Mexico as part of its global growth plan.

Another future unicorn is CNG TRANSFER founded during the pandemic by Emmanuel Tochi and Vincent Omulo, a Nigerian and Kenyan, respectively. The startup’s flagship product is www.Transfy.io – a cross border intra-African money transfer platform built on blockchain enabling Africans to transparently move money from one country to another at no cost. Within a year of launch, they have already processed 100 million of Kenyan Shillings in Kenya alone while operational in Nigeria, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, Rwanda and Ghana.…

Interesting market developments encircled WPP ScanGroup in this review period. The counter’s share price has been on a rally albeit a sharp decline in its bottom line (-1,191.1% y/y) in the just-released FY20 results.

The uptick – that comes after a sequential diminution – is on the back of the exoneration of the suspended senior management that boosted investor confidence given the fact that there was no adverse effect on the counter’s financial performance, position and/or operations linked to the aforementioned. We opine that the rally will continue in the near term to 2Q21 levels as investors accumulate on the earlier exited positions.…

These associations offer some information and services for free although one needs to become a member and pay a fee to access their full range of information, resources and services. By becoming a member of the peak body one can give his/her business credibility as membership proves to customers that you have met strict criteria and have certain qualifications and experience.

That is why we have strict criteria on who can become a member of our organisation in an industry inundated with fraudsters from all corners. …

Many years ago I used to bring small groups of troubled Britons to Uganda to help with some of the charitable construction work that we were doing deep in the rural communities in South West Uganda. The idea was that (as well as building structures for schools, water tanks, medical centres and maternity units) these failing yet entitled Europeans would learn just how lucky they were to be born in a developed country and gain an appreciation of where they ranked on the global opportunity league table. It worked in about 50% of cases and lives were transformed for which I am immensely grateful to God and the communities that we bothered! 

One of the first stops after the airport in Uganda was Mulago Hospital, the National Referral Hospital, and then a place of such misery and despair that it regularly brought allegedly hard British men to tears. It was …

Nairobi is the leading Fintech ecosystem city in Africa according to the 2021 Global Fintech Rankings published on 8^th July 2021 in which it jumped 26 places to the 37^th position globally beating both Lagos and Accra[1]. Kenya’s President, His Excellency Uhuru Kenya stated at a UK summit that “Nairobi International Financial Centre (NIFC) has come of age to be the leading financial hub on the continent”[2]. Kenya is making a major incursion to position itself as the financial hub of Africa on the back of its fintech advantage as President Uhuru Kenyatta signed a $184 million deal with Dominic Raab, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs and First Secretary of State of the UK during his three-day official visit to that country[3]. Kenya’s leadership of the Fintech world in African gives it the impetus to be an international …