Silas Zimu, one of the key players in South Africa’s fast-expanding renewable energy sector, says the seminal climate change documentary by Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, was the trigger for his new focus, the development of green energy in Africa.
Zimu, 46, took up the position of chief executive officer of the South African unit of Indian wind power company, Suzlon Energy in 2010, after years working for power utilities that relied almost entirely on coal.
“It changed my outlook so much I started searching for green solutions,” he says.
After running City Power Johannesburg, a parastatal electricity distribution company, for three years, Zimu came to Suzlon with 19 years’ of experience in South Africa’s power industry, including senior roles at the country’s power monopoly, Eskom.
He has now played a part in securing two of the government’s wind power contracts, which will involve billions of rands of investments.
Under his stewardship, the group, one of the world’s leading wind turbine makers, has already started building 66 wind turbines near Cookhouse in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province. When the units are completed by 2016 it intends to sell power through Eskom’s national grid by 2016. It is the biggest renewable tender awarded in the first round of government tenders.
Suzlon will operate and maintain the turbines energy project selected during round one of the government’s Department of Energy’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REIPPP). The awarding of tenders through the program has been a long time coming, with the policy amended at least once, leaving potential investors somewhat confused for a time.
The Cookhouse Wind Farm is being developed in partnership with African Clean Energy Developments (ACED), described as a South African-based renewable energy project developer, owned jointly by Old Mutual-owned African Infrastructure Investment Managers AFPOC Limited.
Fulfilling government’s desire that South Africa, in terms of job creation and the local communities, benefits from the renewable tenders, the Cookhouse Wind Farm Community Trust holds 25% equity in the project. It is anticipated that the local communities of Cookhouse, Bedford and Somerset East will be beneficiaries of the trust.
“The strategy is to make Suzlon a company that embraces empowerment in South Africa, to manufacture in the country and have offices here. We have a locally-appointed team. We know the playing field and know what we should be aiming for, while understanding government’s renewable framework. The last few years have been tough, but this is the risk one had to take,” says Zimu.
This partnership was part of the awarding of the first government tender. Under the REIPPP, government has said it wants 1,850 megwatts (MW) to be provided by a variety of renewable power sources annualy; this includes wind, solar and power generated from biomass. It hopes to have this much on line by 2021, adding to the country’s current installed capacity of about 40,000 MW.
When Suzlon SA won its first tender, Zimu says friends and family threw a surprise party for him, but he says,
“I would like to celebrate when the first megawatt is generated”.
Zimu, who has a Master’s in engineering, has a 20% stake in Suzlon’s South African unit. It is part of Suzlon Energy, which is the world’s fifth biggest vertically integrated wind turbine maker. He sits on the executive committee of the global group, which is based in Pune, India.
The first project will import the turbines and steel towers to assemble the windmills but Suzlon energy SA is planning to form an operations and maintenance company that will be South African-based.
The intention is to build the steel towers in South Africa for a second project. Zimu says the group has already been awarded a second contract. It will be announced in the next few months.
“We are working towards financial close on that.”
South Africa plans three rounds of bidding for renewable energy projects in the second round Suzlon again secured the biggest allocation in terms of power it will produce. The two projects combined, when up and running, will make Suzlon the second biggest wind turbine company in the country.
South Africa’s desire to build up its green energy sector to reduce its reliance on coal, head off potential power shortages, and meet ambitious targets for slashing greenhouse gas emissions is attracting assistance from other countries. Zimu expects companies like Suzlon to benefit.
In March, Denmark said it would work with the South African government towards its meeting of its renewable goals. The Danish government said in a statement that before the transition from coal to wind energy can take place, wind resources must be mapped and the power grid regulated to allow wind energy to be exploited to the fullest possible extent.
“If we can assist a country like South Africa to convert to more renewable, energy efficient power sources, the climate as a whole will benefit. In 2009, South Africa’s carbon dioxide emissions constituted half of Africa’s total emissions,” says Martin Lidegaard, the Danish minister for climate, energy and building.
Currently South Africa boasts some of the world’s biggest coal-fired power plants and generates some energy from nuclear, natural gas and hydropower sources. While crippling power outages in 2008 forced Eskom to press ahead with two major coal projects, the country’s aim is to spread its power generation across a number of technologies to take advantage of the nation’s abundant wind and solar power potential. Ambitious solar, wave power, hydro and biomass initiatives are also being considered.
Zimu says that Eskom has the capacity to make all the grid connections and the Danish government may help government develop a policy on grid codes.
Zimu is leading Suzlon’s charge into other African countries.
“We have been awarded work in Mauritius and are interested in tenders in Kenya and Namibia,” he says.
It also presented submissions for work in Madagascar and has been invited to visit interested parties in Nigeria, Angola and Ghana.
“I think South Africa is showing other African states the way,” says Zimu.
Even so, other African countries such as Morocco and Kenya are developing ambitious projects of their own. In Kenya the $800 million Lake Turkana Wind Power project is billed as the continent’s biggest and is expected to generate 300MW of electricity.
However, GDF Suez of French and Moroccan company Nareva Holding plan to build a plant of the same size in the desert region of the North African country. Morocco is planning to have 2,000MW of installed wind power by 2020. Lesotho, the mountainous country landlocked by in South Africa, has its own ambitious.
On whether the costs of wind power compare favorably to those of other renewables, Zimu pointed out that solar is more expensive and says wind energy can compete with projects powered by biofuels.
“My vision is to go green, generate green energy [and] create green jobs”.

Money  In The Wind

Less than nine months after the shooting that shocked the world, conflict and tension are back at the richest mines in Africa. Thirty four miners were shot and killed, on August 16, following a week of wildcat strikes in Marikana, South Africa. Now the platinum belt is at war once again.
Miners at Lonmin downed tools for two days following the death of a union leader. The wildcat strike sent share prices tumbling a day after the company had posted positive results. Lonmin shares fell more than 10% over the two days while the rand retreated to a three-week low against the dollar, on fears that the unrest might spread across a sector that accounts for nearly half of South Africa’s foreign exchange earnings.
As an inquiry into the deaths of the 34 miners continued around 40kms away, in Rustenburg, hundreds of miners belonging to the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) marched to the infamous koppie, where the massacre occurred.
In 2012, the strike was over wages; this time around it was union rivalry. Amcu accused the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) of killing one of their office bearers. NUM denies it. Amcu, which has 70% of the membership at Lonmin, is demanding NUM leave their offices at the mine.
In the scorching heat of Marikana, it was a menacing site as miners chanted and danced their way to Wonderkop Stadium. More than 6,000 Amcu members chanted anti-NUM slogans and sang: “Who killed Steve, the man we loved so much”. This referred to the killing of 46-year-old Mawethu Steven, a shop steward who was shot dead while watching football at a tavern on May 11.
“If they have proof of us committing the killings then they must take it to the police,” says Lesiba Seshoka, spokesperson of NUM.
Following a marathon of meetings with Lonmin management, Amcu regional leaders addressed members at the packed stadium just after 4PM on a day where they vowed not to return to work until Lonmin management had kicked out NUM.
Addressing members, who were sitting on the grass using a loudspeaker system, an Amcu leader said the meeting they had attended yielded no results, as Lonmin management had declined to shut down NUM offices.
“The main issue at the meeting was our demand for the closure of NUM offices. After a meeting that started at 5AM, there’s nothing we’re bringing to you. What they [Lonmin] are saying is that they want you to go back to work,” says the leader.
Members reacted angrily and refused to go back to work at the 13 shafts that lay idle at Lonmin. Following deliberations, the leaders invited six workers from the 13 shafts, which have been affected by the strike to respond to the outcome of the meeting.
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All six workers said their co-workers would not return to work because management and government are colluding with NUM. They added that they [Lonmin and government] are allowing their members to carry dangerous weapons to the shafts.
“The employer is clearly showing that he is sleeping with NUM and government. We are not going back to work until NUM vacates the mine,” he says.
Another miner refusing to go back to work said: “What management is saying is the same as farting under water—you can’t hear it”.
Three days later, miners made a U-turn and returned underground.
Meanwhile at Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) Rustenburg, the planned retrenchment of 6,000 miners is set to get ugly. Miners are prepared to fight back and embark on a massive strike that will halt production and send shockwaves around platinum shares.
Workers committee member Evans Ramokga says the company is not backing down on retrenchments, and workers had taken it upon themselves to fight. He says after mass meetings at different shafts, workers have decided to go on strike.
“Unions have done their part and negotiated on our behalves. Now the workers have decided to lead their cause. No one is happy about the retrenchments. Workers are saying if Amplats cannot run the mines they must leave and surrender the mines to another company that will save jobs,” says Ramokga.
Meanwhile on May 21, security guards fired rubber bullets at strikers at Lanxess mine, Rustenburg—one of the biggest suppliers of chrome ore. Five people were injured. The illegal strike was over bonuses.
Days of unrest lie ahead.

The Ghosts Of Marikana

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is immensely rich in resources but past conflict has held back the realization of this wealth, leaving its people amongst the poorest in Africa. The country is expected to be home to the world’s eleventh largest populationa by 2050. Raw mineral deposits are estimated to be worth in excess of $24 trillion but lay idle as fighting plagues the country.
It has seen at least four million people killed and another three million displaced.
Government forces continue to fight the rebel group M23 in the east, and recent peace talks have been suspended. Rene Abandi, leader of the M23 delegation, was quoted saying that negotiations are meaningless.
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This could jeopardize the economic foundations that have already been laid. Eustache Ouayoro, country director at the World Bank, says that over the past few years, the DRC has been able to make significant progress to restore security across most of the territory, political reconciliation and economic recovery with the support of international partners, including the World Bank. So the world waits with bated breath.
Experts look to the country’s vast untapped wealth to pave the way to economic freedom, but say the road to this is likely to be a long one. Ouayoro says that positive signs are there, albeit tentative. The DRC may be emerging from instability and taking its first steps towards a new development era.
The country’s citizens suffer from poor healthcare, limited education and poverty. According to the World Bank, the DRC ranks last among the 187 countries in the Human Development Index. Poverty is widespread, with 71% of the population living on $1.25 a day.
The DRC, however, has been making steady strides in economic growth. Inflation was under control and in single figures in 2012, compared to 500% in 2001, and the World Bank says that with economic growth of 7.2% in 2012, and 8.2% expected in 2013, the DRC is among the countries experiencing some of the fastest levels of growth in the world at a time when it is non-existent in Europe.
Debt relief has helped. DRC was granted an estimated $16 billion debt relief under the World Bank and IMF’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative. The write down has helped improve the country’s fiscal position and has allowed it to invest its debt savings in to development opportunities.
The World Bank reports that only a mere 10% of the DRC’s huge tracts of arable land are farmed, and only 13,000 hectares are irrigated. The country has four million hectares, but is currently importing at least 30% of its food. The World Bank believes its land could feed a billion people.
Ouayoro says that for the country to realize its full potential, there needs to be: improvement to the business climate; progress on anti-corruption measures; economic governance and stronger government institutions. It will also have to address the large infrastructure gap and prioritize food production and agriculture.
“We must promote inclusive growth in the DRC by making its economy more irresistibly competitive and helping to spur the creation of new, well-paying jobs, especially for the country’s growing ranks of young people,” Ouayoro says.

The Poor Rich Country

A new generation of African entrepreneurs and businesses is emerging. They are challenging the old way of doing business and driving cross-border growth.
Kenya’s ICT companies are investing in Rwanda and are now looking to enter Nigeria, while United Bank for Africa and other Nigerian banks are rapidly expanding into Africa. In 2009, South Africa invested $1.6 billion (FDI outflows) into other African countries. MTN, a South African mobile giant, operates in 21 African countries; and Glo, a Nigerian mobile operator, operates in the Republic of Benin, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.
Africa’s statistics speak of tremendous potential: the continent is the size of China, Mexico, Europe, India, the States and Japan combined. The population will soon surpass China, with a middle class as big as India’s. Africa has enjoyed more than a decade of sustained GDP growth, which has often outstripped many other parts of the world.
There is frustration in that Africans are not reaping the rewards of the current global investor confidence. The mass export of commodities doesn’t see wealth trickle down.
Home-grown investments, focused on value-adding industries, are the key to changing this dynamic.
Africans still seem to choose products and investments from outside the continent. They prefer to export outside Africa rather than to trade, manufacture and add value within. Many African countries continue to trade raw materials but they don’t have the capability to refine or process, so they import the finished products from outside of Africa.
We need to understand what is preventing Africa from being home to value-adding and value-creating businesses. Why, for example, is Africa’s agricultural richness not generating an integrated growing and processing industry as it has done in Brazil?
Africa requires an environment that facilitates investment and greater market integration. The current weaknesses—corruption, high start-up costs, poor infrastructure—are well-known. But our study will also shed light on the legal, social and cultural differences within Africa that restrict cross-border investments.
There need to be integrated regional production chains within Africa, where Africa’s raw materials are processed into finished goods to be traded. Regional trading blocs— including the Tripartite Free Trade Area, which encompasses the East African Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa and the Southern African Development Community—would thus thrive, paving the way for a Continental Free Trade Area, that would produce and trade high value-added goods internally.
Greater market integration in Africa will lead to a significant reduction in the cost of doing business and alleviate some of the problems associated with securing work permits and labor mobility.
Over the long-term, Africa’s competitiveness will hinge to a great degree on how well we educate our young people. Often, the most talented Africans have sought educational advancement and careers overseas, but a combination of transformational educational technology, growing opportunities at home and the poor global economic climate could see this brain drain becoming a brain gain. Retaining talent, home-grown or otherwise, is critical. Policy that enables skilled Africans to work across our borders more easily will help achieve this goal.
Never have circumstances been more propitious for African business. A rise in disposable incomes, high rates of urbanization and a fast-growing working-age population speak of an emerging class of purchasers of consumer goods, financial services and infrastructure, as well as a potential source of manpower for industrialization and agricultural development.
Africans must explore ways to move beyond regional differences and competition to build Africa together from within, so that Africans at all levels become the primary beneficiaries of the continent’s growth.

Unite And Prosper

The lines were drawn across a giant map of Africa at this gathering of the great and the good in business, in Cape Town. The expensive business of pouring billions of dollars into making these lines on a map into trade routes plied by high-speed planes, trains and trucks, will make-or-break of the African dream.
More than 1,000 delegates arrived at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Cape Town, on May 9, to discuss the practicalities of building infrastructure to nurture the emerging economies of Africa. It is a herculean task, to say the least, with the World Bank estimating the continent needs $93 billion to complete the job. Experts say the cost may be much more.
Plans have been drawn up for trade corridors traversing the continent. They include: a swifter trade route between oil-rich Angola and South Africa; plus, an ambitious plan to improve the rails, roads, ports and airports between Cape Town and Cairo—a dream that is likely to have the old colonialist, Cecil John Rhodes, chuckling in his grave in the Matopos Hills, near Bulawayo in Zimbabwe.
“It is ironic that democratic African nations, that have turned their back on colonialism, are trying to revive a plan hatched by the colonialist Cecil Rhodes more than a century ago,” says Ebrahim Patel, South Africa’s economic development minister.
To execute these plans, experts have drawn up a list of 50 priority projects that will be whittled down to 15 in the next six months. They include the expansion of the Grand Inga Dam hydroelectric plan in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the boosting of infrastructure to help extract gas from the waters off the coast of Mozambique.
“It is a wonderful vision but getting it done is something else,” says Nick Chism, the global head for Infrastructure at KPMG, who has been studying infrastructure worldwide for 20 years.
Chism believes a shortage of skills and finance are likely to be among the biggest hurdles. He also warns there could be tension between nations, before the list of 15 projects is decided, over what is built where.
“The idea is to build infrastructure in hubs, that is, a good airport in one country, a good port in the neighboring country and so on. As you can imagine, each country wants the best of everything built in their own backyard,” says Chism.
Despite these warnings and the dismissal by critics of WEF as a mere talk shop, there was optimism among the millionaires, entrepreneurs, technocrats and government officials, who gathered in Cape Town.
“I think things are starting to gel. We are in a lot better space than we were a decade ago,” says Trevor Manuel, South Africa’s minister of national planning.
Money, in a shallow world capital market, is likely to be the most insurmountable object. But Nigerian entrepreneur, Tony Elumelu, who invested recently in a $300 million power plant at home and put money into the launch of Rwanda’s new commodity exchange, sees hope.
“The best of Africa’s entrepreneurs are seeking investment opportunities in the continent… If we invest in Africa, we will get others to follow,” says Elumelu.
Folorunsho Alakija, reputed to be the richest woman in Africa, with a personal fortune, estimated by FORBES, of $600 million, has made her money through the license to the rich Agbami oil block off the coast of Nigeria. The block has 1.2 billion barrels of oil.
“We shouldn’t be waiting for handouts from other countries; we should get together to make our way forward, by ourselves, to give our people pride… There are plenty of opportunities in agriculture. Nigeria is importing so much rice. I do not think we should be importing anything from anyone,” says Alakija.
If optimism were cash, Africa’s infrastructure problems could be sorted before WEF reconvenes in Nigeria in May.
As it stands, there is a lot of fund raising and tough talking to be done. Cautious investors from New York to Beijing have to be won over. Despite the promise of returns of more than 20%, this is likely to be a hard sell. Africa is rising with an average growth rate of 5% at a time when the rest of the world is at a standstill. Few at this annual talk fest could disagree that the economies are moving, but finance needs to keep pace.

The Near  And Dear Dream

It all started with a coffee addiction. Carl Pretorius drank five to six shots of espresso a day until the caffeine started affecting his health. He looked for an alternative, but he didn’t want decaf, nor tea.
“One late morning, I was about to have another espresso, but was feeling jittery. I literally tore open two Rooibos tea bags and popped the leaves into the espresso machine. That wasn’t really good, but the idea started there,” says Pretorius.
It took him several weeks of refining his attempts to get from the strong tea that came out of the espresso machine that day, in 2005, to the world’s first ‘red espresso’, which today sells all over the world.
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“I experimented with different grinds. Every time I tried a variation it got better, until one day, the consistency was perfect,” says Pretorius.
The flavor was intense, smooth and nutty. And the ritual of drinking a shot of something hot and sweet was similar to that of having an espresso. Then Pretorius added milk to turn the Rooibos espresso into a cappuccino.
“After I tasted it, I knew this really had potential. I got goose bumps,” he says.
Pretorius’ entrepreneurial instinct kicked in. Only six months after putting the first batch of Rooibos into his espresso machine, he filed an application to patent the cut of the tea leaves and preparation method. He then hired an attorney to verify that he was indeed the first person to come up with the idea.
“They did a very thorough global search but there was nothing like it,” he says.
Next, Pretorius checked if there was a market for a tea-based espresso. He visited a friend’s coffee shop in Paarl, in South Africa’s Western Cape province, wrote ‘Rooibos Cappuccino’ on a small chalkboard, sat and waited.
Within a couple of hours, a range of customers had ordered the new beverage. Everyone loved it, giving Pretorius the boost he needed.
He got his friend Pete Ethelston onboard, who invested several million rands, and the two founded Red Espresso. Just a few weeks later, the naturally caffeine-free beverage was sold in the cafés of South African upmarket food and retail chains Woolworths, Mugg &amp; Bean and @Home throughout the country. Suddenly, old-fashioned Rooibos tea was new and sexy.
Pretorius believes it is the product’s authenticity that led to its fast commercial success. Red Espresso is made from 100% export-grade, wild, hand-harvested Rooibos tea. Because it is grown organically, it has a small environmental footprint and is extremely healthy, with 10 times more antioxidants than regular Rooibos tea and five times more than Green tea.
Within six months of serving the first Rooibos cappuccinos in cafés, the demand for a retail product came. Customers liked the coffee alternative so much they wanted to brew their own red espressos at home. Today, the multi-award-winning “tea that plays by coffee’s rules” is available in more than 600 South African stores and 16 countries around the world, with Canada, Portugal and South Korea being the biggest export markets. A move into Germany is planned for the second half of this year.
Expansion plans weren’t always straightforward, though. While Rooibos can be found in almost every South African kitchen, people in most other countries had never heard of this particular herbal tea, grown only in a small region of the Western Cape. As a result, red cappuccinos were a much harder sale overseas.
“We basically have to educate the customer base first,” Pretorius explains.
The company gives Rooibos virgins a taste experience by first introducing red cappuccinos to the food service and only later move into retail.
Early expansion into the United States taught Pretorius and his team a tough but invaluable lesson. Whole Foods Market, a major American chain of natural foods supermarkets, listed Red Espresso as one of their products that would be sold in thousands of stores throughout the country.
“That was a real achievement, but the product didn’t go off the shelves, because nobody knew what it was. We realized that you need to go in slowly, go through food service to create the demand and then go into retail. We had put the cart before the horse and eventually had to pull the product. Now it’s a matter of going back into the US market, but more slowly and probably state by state,” Pretorius says.
The Americans’ increasing affinity for healthy drinks could give Pretorius an extra advantage. According to Beverage Digest magazine, coffee consumption in the United States fell for the first time in decades by 2.3% between 2006 and 2009, while tea drinking increased over the same period by 4.5%.
Pretorius, who still indulges in the odd espresso, says: “We are very excited about that trend. While we don’t try to compete with coffee, we offer coffee drinkers an alternative. And that’s happening.”
He is also eyeing a range of other markets like China and the Far East, where tea drinking has a long tradition and people don’t need to be seduced into trying coffee alternatives.
“Those are exciting markets for us because people there are herbal tea drinkers and keen to try new options,” says Pretorius.
He’s painting the world red, one cup at a time.

Something Red Is Brewing

It’s 10AM on a Thursday on Victoria Island, Lagos; the pulse of the Nigerian financial world is racing. Blue-chip boardrooms buzz; so does the traffic. I’ve eased my way to the serene offices of a man who surveys it all from the 12th floor.
The view is framed by the Atlantic Ocean to the south and some of Nigeria’s richest buildings to the north. From his vantage point, Jim Ovia can pick out the twin pillars of his success. Across the city is the unmistakable red of Zenith Bank, where he made most of his $825-million fortune. Company insiders say that his wealth is nearer $1 billion after a string of lucrative deals this year. Also on the Lagos horizon are Visafone billboards, his telecommunications business and moneymaker, with a current subscriber base of  around 2.3 million.
Inside the huge office are shelves of plaques, awards and photographs of Ovia with Bill Clinton, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Goodluck Jonathan, alongside pieces of literature and art.
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Dressed in a well-cut suit, he greets me like an old friend. They call him ‘the godfather of Nigerian banking’ and in many ways, he is. Banking is where he began life as a clerk; it was also the vehicle that carried him to his fortune. He created West Africa’s largest financial services provider, according to market capitalization and assets.
Ovia transformed Zenith from a small commercial bank into a financial services conglomerate, with operations in private and retail banking and investments around the world. After nearly two decades at the helm he stepped down, but he remains its largest individual shareholder with a 15% stake in the company.
“When we started Zenith in 1990, it was extremely difficult as the necessary resources and infrastructure to do business, particularly banking, were not in place. There were no ATMs, no mobile phones and ICT was a rarely known concept in the business space,” he says.
“When, in 1990, banking licenses were being issued, indigenous private individuals were being offered the opportunity to set up financial institutions. Prior to that, you either needed to be a foreign global financial institution, or a federal or state government institution, to own or set up a bank in Nigeria. Businesses and entrepreneurs could not possibly get these licenses because of the prerequisites attached. It was perceived then, that Nigeria did not have the technical expertise to run or manage banks.”
A surge of liberalization soon changed this. On May 30, 1990, doors were opened for Ovia and 119 other hopefuls, who received their bank licenses. It was a long-awaited breakthrough. Ovia and his team got down to work quickly. They commenced operations on July 16 for what proved to be a rocky beginning, with technology very thin on the ground.
Improvisation was the way forward. Ovia had to be creative with the sparse telecommunications and financial services on offer. In time, with the help of improved infrastructure, the bank found its feet.
Ovia saw a silver lining, then noticed the cloud. The introduction of ATMs to Nigeria was not an easy one. It proved difficult to win over people who had grown up with counters and rubber stamps. People worried about fraud and it also took time and feasibility studies to decide where to place the ATMs. Ovia and his team persevered and Zenith blossomed.
Banking isn’t Ovia’s only game. He also owns an expansive real estate portfolio with landmark commercial and residential properties. These include the Civic Centre  and an exclusive boat club, Aquamarine in Lagos, where Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, is a member. Ovia is known to have a weakness for expensive boats.
It is his infectious entrepreneurial passion that paid for this lifestyle.
“Your passions are always in sync with opportunities. You’re naturally able to identify them and respond to them as they materialize because of the passion you have for them,” he says.
It is an intuition that has driven Ovia through life as an entrepreneur. Choices came early for the young Ovia, who grew up one of many children in a large family in Akbor in Nigeria’s Delta State. As a young man, Ovia pondered what to study. He was encouraged by his uncles, who had run successful businesses, to pursue a qualification in business administration. To this day, for most Nigerian families, business administration, alongside medicine, law, accounting and engineering are the keys to success. Ovia went for it and enrolled for a degree in business administration at Southern University, Louisiana, in the States.
“It so happened that halfway through my studies, my keen interest in computer science and information technology was heightened… I couldn’t help it and decided to incorporate computer science into my program. One of my uncles advised me against this, as he reckoned that it was an immature industry at that point. Business administration was the way forward,” he says.
Ovia carried on regardless of avuncular warnings.
“Like any young man, I was full of hopes… [there were] tremendous opportunities in the future. It wasn’t so much what you studied but what you did with the knowledge that mattered.”
Ovia earned an MBA from the University of Louisiana, after which he returned to Nigeria to do his National Youth Service Corps, where he worked with one of the government-owned banks. He secured a job with First National Bank of Chicago—then International Merchant Bank—in Lagos, where he was trained as a financial analyst. This was just one of many strings to Ovia’s bow.
“I’ve worked as everything, from a junior clerical officer in a bank to a middle management trainee. I really did work my way up the ladder. I had enjoyed banking as a profession right from the onset and because of the passion I had for it, it became a place that I went to be happy. I worked 16 hours a day and I enjoyed every minute of it,” he says.
Many years later, Ovia knew the business inside-out and nurtured his brainchild, Zenith Bank, to rude health. ICT was the next fertile field.
“The way I see it, all are seamlessly interwoven. You can’t do telecommunications without combining information and vice versa. As part of my interwoven passions, it became my immediate desire, and the next level of evolution for me was the establishment of a mobile phone company,” he says.
Ovia was one of the early players in the internet space and established a company called Cyberspace in 1995, when the internet was almost unheard of in Nigeria.
“We were the pioneering set of internet service providers in the country and it was very challenging back then because there were no submarine fiber optic cables to give us the bandwidth and speed we needed to download data. We then had to rely on satellite dishes that would provide this speed to log into any portal out of the country,” he says.
As the private sector fought steadily for its place, the government kept a firm grasp on major sectors, especially telecommunications. Nigerian Telecommunications (NITEL) enjoyed a monopoly.
“It had the density of only about 0.04 percent, which equated to about 250 entities and homes sharing a telephone line. There were hardly 450,000 existing lines for an entire population of about 120 million Nigerians then. Today, we have about three other submarine cables that enable high-speed broadband technology internet services in the country.”
Ovia’s telecommunications company, Visafone, was another testament to his faith in timing and instinct. The Nigerian government, after an apparent communications epiphany, decided to license the Global System for Communications (GSM) services to a few bidders. Ovia didn’t participate in this auction—an opportunity every bidder couldn’t afford to miss back then.
“All my attention was focused on building a strong financial institution at that point, I couldn’t afford to be distracted and the timing was unfortunately not good for me. Failure is an opportunity to learn&#8230; You can only succeed when you fail, get up and then run again. I was determined to keep running.”
Ovia’s philosophy on setbacks was useful when a new directive from the Central Bank of Nigeria, on the tenure of bank CEOs, forced him to step down from an organization he had built from scratch.
“I immediately took it in my stride and couldn’t find any reason for resistance… I’m in fact glad that decision was made, because it also opened up tremendous opportunities for me and this allowed me to move on to accomplish new things I wouldn’t have had the time for.”
With this philosophy in mind, Ovia started anew. Along one of the major roads in Victoria Island, Ozumba Mbadiwe, is the waterfront, which used to be refuse dump. A drive along this road saw the genesis of Ovia’s real estate empire.
“I saw an opportunity on this refuse dump and decided to transform it into something else. The result of this foresight is the famous Lagos Civic Centre—a masterpiece event venue on the waterfront. This development immediately opened up other opportunities,” says Ovia.
Lagos, a metropolitan mega-city with a population of around 21 million, scores poorly when it comes to hotel rooms per head. Ovia saw the gap. As the result of a multi million dollar deal, the Lagos Marriott Hotel is set to open in December next year.
“This is one of the ways to create an enabling environment for the future of tourism in Nigeria,” says Ovia.
Philanthropy is equally important to him. He has embarked on the establishment of a free, co-educational high school, James Hope College, in Delta State, the place where he pondered his future as a young man. The school, an 18-month project, launches in September with an initial capacity for 420 students. He is also the founder of Mankind United To Support Total Education (MUSTE), an organization providing scholarships for the underprivileged.
“This will provide an opportunity for our future leaders. It is a mission I’m thrilled to drive, as it is a great investment in the future of my country. The first thing you learn in business is to make profit. However, how you choose to spend the profits is just as important. Philanthropy is important to me as I derive more joy from spending mine this way. You need to give back, reach out to the larger society and less privileged,” he says.
In the past year, Ovia gave $6.3 million to help the rehabilitation of flood victims across Nigeria. He also runs a non-governmental organization for young Nigerians that drives social change through information and communications technologies. Ovia is a father of five and a family man.
“Family is very important and I derive tremendous joy from being with [them]. I’ve always been family-focused. My father had three wives and I have almost a dozen siblings but we’ve always been very close-knit,” he says.
While he is revered by many, Ovia has also been influenced by a few. One of his inspirations is Akintola Williams, the first African to qualify as a chartered accountant, whose firm, Akintola Williams &amp; Co., was founded in 1952. The company merged with two other accounting firms to create Akintola Williams Deloitte, the largest professional services firm in Nigeria today—a position it has held since 2004.
“This 94-year-old man is someone that I have so much respect and gratitude for. He inspired me very greatly, because he’s a man of honor, integrity and an unbelievable level of discipline,” says Ovia.
Ovia learned from many to become the fourth richest man in Nigeria and the 19th richest in Africa. I ask him about his fortune but he becomes reticent.
“Wealth means nothing to me—it’s what you do with it that is truly important. Yes, I am blessed but there is really nothing special about me. I’m just a regular guy who has a hunch for identifying opportunities and taking advantage of them.”
He says that he achieved his success by remaining truthful to every partner and stakeholder.
“Honesty and integrity are key. Always honor contracts. That speaks volumes. It’s very important to be of tremendous integrity. There are really no shortcuts. Those who try to take shortcuts will always fail,” he says.
When it comes to Nigeria and its entrepreneurs, Ovia is fulsome, believing that with improving infrastructure and the privatization of the power sector, the country is a breeding ground for entrepreneurial spirit.
“Nigeria will be a gold mine in the next few years… Every day, international airlines are fully-booked to come to Nigeria and the only reason they do this is because the return on investment here is one of the highest in the world. I’m very proud to be a Nigerian because this country gives… tremendous opportunity to blossom,” he says.
Nigeria is a country that rewards hard work and Ovia says that some foreign investors misunderstand the terrain. The solution, he says, is understanding that while the work is tough, it is very rewarding.
Zenith has seen the fruits of this kind of hard work. This was reflected in the 2012 financial year, as it achieved $634 million profit after tax, according to reports released by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) a grand feat that not only saw it become the first bank to cross the 100 billion naira mark within a financial year, but also reflected an impressive 106.7% growth on the $303.2 million profit after tax recorded for the 2011 financial year.
Zenith is now Nigeria’s largest bank. It recently listed $850-million worth of shares on the London Stock Exchange at $6.80 a share, to improve its liquidity through Global Depository Receipts (GDR). It has a current market capitalization of around $4 billion, according to the NSE.
In recognition of his accomplishments in the banking sector, Ovia was conferred with the national award of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON) in November 2011.
From these achievements, it may seem to many that Ovia has reached his zenith with a sharp mind that once saw value in a refuse dump.

The Godfather of Nigerian Banking

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Who says being a caddie lacks romance?
Two Zimbabweans, both alike in dignity, in the United States where we lay our scene: one a professional golfer, the other a hairdresser.
Ryan Cairns, a former number-one golfer in Zimbabwe, was in the United States when he came across Tammy Birkett’s profile on Facebook. He liked what he saw and thought he had met her before but when he made contact, it turned out they were complete strangers.
“The only reason I accepted [his friend request] was because we had 120 mutual friends,” says Birkett.
Their conversations became more frequent and, as fate would have it, on an auspicious day they were booked on the same flight from New York to Zimbabwe. They checked in together and after 16 hours there was love in the air. After the two began dating, Cairns popped the question: will you caddie for me?
Their first game together was at the Sunshine Big Easy Tour in 2012. Cairns played well, perhaps he was trying to impress Birkett, and landed his first professional win. It was also a first for Birkett as a caddie. She learnt that there was more to it than knowing the yardage, pin placements and which club to use.
“At the time I had run out of money and instead of me paying, she paid for herself. She sponsored her own trip down to South Africa from Harare… [We] ended up winning the tournament and my career turned around. She took a chance on me and that made a huge difference,” says Cairns.
Like any relationship the bond between caddie and player is developed through trials and successes on the green. When Cairns is struggling, Birkett knows just what to do.
“One thing that I always say is, ‘Imagine yourself in a couple of hours when we are watching a movie, chilling, and you’re not even going to have this bad feeling that you have right now, so there is no point in holding onto that.’”
Birkett, who is now in her second year as a caddie, says that her biggest problem—besides being one of the few female caddies—is getting in line with the pedantic.
“When I first started, there were so many rules around the green like walking on your lines… you can’t talk, whisper at certain times and moving the bag was such an issue.”
Across the Beitbridge border, in South Africa, another caddie shares his secret of success.
It was the summer of 1998 at the Nedbank Golf Challenge, also known as the million-dollar golf challenge. As the tournament came to a close Tiger Woods seemed the likely winner. But with a then course record of 24 under par, Nick Price walked away with the trophy. A few steps behind him, carrying his bag, stood Tiger Lekhulene.
“We had beaten Tiger Woods. How many people can say that they beat Tiger Woods?” says Lekhulene.
Beating his namesake was the end of a very long road for Lekhulene. At the age of 14, he began his career as a caddie at Randpark Golf Club in Johannesburg, to pay for his school fees. He matriculated and became a fulltime caddie for top players, including Ian Palmer, Sally Little and Des Terblanche. Of all the players he has carried for, none of them have won as many tournaments as Price. For the past 33 years, Lekhulene has carried for him and is proud to call him a friend.
“I met Nicky by chance. He came to practice at Randpark and asked me to pick up balls for him. After his practice he asked me to caddie for him… he won the first professional game I caddied for him [Asseng TV Challenge Series], in 1979.”
Although caddies advise the player on what club to use and how to play the shot, at the end of the day they know not to overstep.
“You can discuss how to hit a shot but the final decision is up to him, he is the one who is going to hit the ball. You can’t force him to play a shot that he doesn’t want to play,” says Lekhulene.
Although Lekhulene enjoys his career, he says that his biggest issue is in the politics of the game.
“Golfers are not giving professional caddies a fair chance as they used to. I feel white people no longer feel like they should be giving black people so much money. They would rather have their cousins, fathers or family members caddie for them and give them the money. This is placing our careers as professionally-trained caddies at risk,” says Lekhulene.
Both Lekhulene and Birkett agree that there are perks. You get to see the world, make a good living and on top of your pay you often get a very good commission. According to the Sunshine Tour in South Africa, caddies’ salaries differ from caddie to caddie, as it is an agreement between the caddie and the golfer.
Although Lekhulene and Birkett have taken different paths, they both became caddies to top golfers in Africa, proving that there is no set way to become a caddie. Sometimes it takes hard work; sometimes it’s a meeting on the green; and sometimes it’s a romance on a social networking site.

Will You Caddie For Me, Dear?

Millions loved her, millions more hated her; few could ignore her. When former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died of a stroke at the Ritz Hotel in London, on April 8, it knocked the rest of the news off the bulletins for days.
It was the end of a life that made waves from Brussels to Africa with an attitude that could both divide and inspire. When she joined Parliament in 1959, the grocer’s daughter from Grantham was one of the few women in a legislature that resembled a gentleman’s club. In her years in Westminster she overcame prejudice against women and people from humble backgrounds.
“You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning,” said Thatcher in one of her most famous speeches, in 1980.
The Iron Lady—as the Russians dubbed her—criticized Europe, sacked her ministers, went to war with Argentina, poured harsh words and legislation on the unions and scorned Africa’s biggest liberation movement.
Thatcher called the African National Congress (ANC) terrorists, she refused to recognize the party and cast doubt on its ability to govern. Despite this, according to Thomas Wheeler, a research associate at the South African Institute of International Affairs, Thatcher found apartheid unacceptable, even though she didn’t believe in sanctions. Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda, clashed with Thatcher over apartheid at a Commonwealth conference in Lusaka, but the two ended up dancing the night away in the ballroom.
“We acknowledge that she was one of the strong leaders in Britain and Europe to an extent that some of her policies dominate discourse in the public service structures of the world,” the ANC was gracious enough to say.
Thatcher also had little time for the liberation forces of Zimbabwe, then Rhodesia. In 1979, Thatcher banned her envoy from meeting with ZANU leader Robert Mugabe; refusing to talk with someone she regarded a terrorist, until he became Prime Minister. At the time, Britain was mulling over whether to recognize the interim government of the late Bishop Abel Muzorewa. His was the first black-led administration in Zimbabwe, but nationalists saw it as a puppet regime.
Many Rhodesian British passport holders helped vote in Thatcher in the May 1979 election in the hope that it would postpone independence. Ironically, it was Thatcher who pushed through the Lancaster House talks in London, later that year, that ushered in independence on April 18, 1980—the night when the Union flag came down for the last time and Bob Marley played to jubilant thousands at Rufaro Stadium in Harare.
Two years later the Iron Lady was rusting. Her social welfare cut backs angered the poor and led to riots in 1981; by 1982 she was the most unpopular British Prime Minister in history. When British forces repelled the Argentinians from the Falkland Islands in 1982, Thatcher rode a wave of popularity to a landslide victory in 1983.
On that night, covering my first election, I asked one of the more experienced journalists what this victory meant.
“Fewer and fewer people are going to get richer and richer,” he had said on that night.
So it was. Thatcher borrowed free market theory from the Chicago Business School to turn Britain from a dowdy backwater, laden with regulation and exchange controls, into a dynamic capitalist economy. When she deregulated the financial markets of London in 1986, it made fortunes for the dealers and drew capital and expertise from around the world.
On the way, Thatcher crushed the trade union movement, including a victory over the powerful National Union of Mineworkers in 1985, the union which had brought down the Ted Heath government in the early 1970s.
“If you want to make an omelet you have to break a few eggs but she picked up the shells and smashed them against the wall,” said her former opponent, former Labor leader, Neil Kinnock.
Unrest over the growing inequality of wealth and a riot over a highly unpopular Poll Tax in 1990 sealed Thatcher’s fate and by the end of the year her cabinet colleagues had ousted her in favor of John Major.
In death, Thatcher may have won over many sympathizers from Africa. Thousands of British people organized parties to crow over her death and many people on this continent are likely to frown upon that.
Thatcher was cremated after her funeral on April 17, at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

THE IRON LADY AND THE TERRORISTS

Everybody remembers Nick Leeson, the young trader who broke Barings Bank—where the Queen was a customer—but few recall the African connection.
It was the last couple of pages of a report written by the board of banking supervision issued on behalf of the Bank of England, alleged that Leeson had a number of assets in South Africa.
This document was issued six months after the collapse of Barings Bank in 1995, when Leeson lost it GBP 862 million pounds ($1.4 billion) through unauthorized trading.
“I’d never been to South Africa at that stage. The only connection I can draw is that we did have a couple of South African clients that we transacted futures for…but that’s the only South African connection,” says Leeson.
The 46-year-old was in Johannesburg for a few days speaking about risk management, compliance and corporate responsibility laced with his remarkable story.
Barings Bank was the oldest merchant bank in London and had funded the Napoleonic wars. Leeson, the son of a plasterer from Watford, was seen as the whizzkid in the Singapore office.
He made huge profits for the bank and was very successful in speculative trades, but lost his midas touch when he tried to hide losses from bad trades in an error account called 88888. It had been set up to cover up a mistake made by an inexperienced trader. Instead of taking a loss, Leeson played the odds in an attempt to recover money.
It all fell apart when Leeson placed a short straddle—a risky strategy an investor uses when he or she believes that a stock&#8217;s price will not move up or down significantly—on the Nikkei, banking on the exchange remaining stable overnight. Leeson should have been safe in such a position, but the Japanese earthquake on January 17, 1995, in Kobe caused the Nikkei to go into free-fall.
Facing huge losses with Asian markets in panic, he tried to recover the losses with short-term gambles based on the recovery of the Nikkei. Unfortunately, the earthquake dashed these hopes.
Back in London, the Bank of England rejected a bailout days before Barings declared bankruptcy. The Bank almost went bust in the 1890s over investments on Latin American bonds, this time there was no reprieve.
Feeling helpless, Leeson fled the country leaving a scribbled note saying “I’m sorry”. He was arrested in Germany, and nine months later was extradited to Singapore where he was sentenced to more than six years in prison.
Leeson was the only Englishman in a prison full of triad gangs. He was locked up in a tiny cell with two others for 23 three hours a day.
In prison, Leeson was diagnosed with colon cancer and lost weight and most of his hair from chemotherapy. The Singapore authorities were determined not to allow their high profile prisoner to die behind bars and assigned him the doctor of former Singapore president, Lee Kuan Yew. In prison, Leeson wrote his autobiography, while back in London Sir David Frost was producing a film about his life.
“The film came out before I did,” he chuckled.
Writer and director of the film, James Dearden, pretending to be Leeson’s uncle, flew to Singapore to discuss the plans with him, but little passed between the two.
“That’s the only input I had in the movie. It was a standard 15-minute visit. The questions he was asking weren’t specifically about what was going on. It was more like how are you, have you seen your aunt? He only asked a few questions concerning the movie,” says Leeson.
Then Leeson was released after four and a half years on the grounds of his health and good behaviour. He has now recovered fully from cancer and lives in Galway, Ireland with his second wife and three children.
In 2006, he became CEO of Galway United, a professional football club. He resigned in 2011, but remains a shareholder. While working at the football club Leeson published his second book, Back from the Brink, Coping with Stress.
Leeson has tried his hand at online poker and is now a speaker for conferences and dinner’s around the world, getting paid to talk about risk and corporate responsibility—even though he’s the face of catastrophic failure in both fields.
Thirteen years after his release from prison, Leeson was appointed as an alternative insolvency practitioner at GDP Partnership, a financial firm, in Ireland, in April. He is assisting over-indebted borrowers negotiate deals with their banks. Whatever he does in life, he will be labelled with two words—rogue trader.
“When stuff was written in the paper it was always painful to read. Sometimes it still is now. My name is always prefaced with ‘rogue trader’ which is okay, the book is called that. Sometimes you get ‘disgraced banker’ or ‘fraudster’, a couple of those words still anger me, but you kind of have to take it on the chin.”
Leeson took the losses that took him to prison on the chin and maintains that he never profited from his unauthorised trading.

Did Rogue  Trader Millions End Up In Africa?

Foreign-owned banks in Zimbabwe are prepared to brave the current wave of uncertainty emanating from the country’s controversial indigenization policy which could lead to “significant changes” in the shareholding structure of the banks as they are also under pressure to raise $100 million in statutory capital.
“The new capitalization requirements and compliance with indigenization will likely result in major changes in the structure of the banking sector as players try to comply with those two requirements,” says Willard Zireva, the chairman of MBCA Bank, the Zimbabwean unit of Nedbank.
The indigenization policy, which was promulgated in 2008, requires that foreign-owned companies cede 51% of their shares into the hands of black Zimbabwean groups. President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party are apparently pushing for the policy ahead of elections expected in July this year, while Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC party will try to reverse the policy, saying it is not investor-friendly.
The government has, however, not swiftly moved in on the banks as Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, Dr Gideon Gono, insists that forcing the banks to cede 51% shares will destabilize the already fragile banking sector. More than three locally-owned banks have already collapsed in the past year after succumbing to operational constraints, low liquidity levels and low capital bases.
It is the larger, foreign-owned banks—Barclays, Standard Chartered and the Zimbabwe units of Standard Bank and Nedbank—that have brought stability to the banking sector. Only about three local banks are considered stable and these include CBZ, FBC and ZB banks. Zimbabwe has 22 banks, most of them commercial.
“The smaller, locally-owned banks are less stable than the larger, more established foreign banks. We have… 22 banks functioning in an economy which is much too small for that number of banks,” says Zimbabwean economist John Robertson.
While economists and investment fund managers have warned that the indigenization policy and the placid nature of Zimbabwe’s regulatory framework may push investors out of the country, foreign banks are prepared to brave the current chill in Zimbabwe’s operating environment.
Dennis Mambure, the spokesperson at Barclays Zimbabwe, which has been left out of a deal that saw Barclays Africa operations merge with South Africa’s Absa Bank, says the bank is keen to comply with Zimbabwe’s policies. He insists that the bank had made submissions to the government and that negotiations are ongoing.
“Barclays operates within the confines of the legal and regulatory framework of the country. At no time has the bank disregarded any regulatory directive or obligation. Barclays Bank has made all submissions required by the laws on indigenization to the relevant authorities. Engagement with authorities on these submissions is on-going and Barclays is not at liberty to disclose the content of those confidential discussions,” says Mambure.
Interestingly, Mugabe has called for lower indigenization compliance thresholds for the foreign banks. He said in a televised interview, ahead of his 89th birthday celebrations, that the 51% threshold was not rigid, adding that the banking sector could be considered for lower thresholds, further complicating the placid nature of the regulatory environment in Zimbabwe.
This has been interpreted as a victory for the banks who had earlier argued against the 51% compliance thresholds. But youth development, indigenization and empowerment minister, Saviour Kasukuwere, appears to have the final say as to what thresholds the banks will have to comply with. He told FORBES AFRICA in an interview this month that the banks have to show willingness to comply.
“The minister can use his powers to consider variations. The banks have to come forward and submit their plans and we can even consider different timeframes for compliance,” he says.
Gono called for flexibility in implementation of the empowerment policy in the banking sector. “You need to be flexible when you come to the banking sector… because you cannot indigenize technology. You cannot apply the same rules that you are applying everywhere to the banking sector. I am going to defend that position,” he told a breakfast meeting of industrialists
Despite the earlier softening in the government’s stance regarding indigenization compliance for foreign banks in Zimbabwe, Kasukuwere in March wrote to the foreign banks asking them to be fully compliant with the contentious policy by the end of June.
The new directive by Kasukuwere stokes up the fight between him, the central bank governor and finance minister, Tendai Biti. Gono says that he will defend Mugabe’s reasoning in calling for compliance variations below the mandatory 51%.
However, the Zimbabwean unit of Standard Chartered has welcomed Mugabe’s statement, saying the bank is committed to its employees and clients in Zimbabwe, hence the bank’s willingness to comply with the indigenization policy.
“We remain committed to the long-term interests of our staff and customers in Zimbabwe, and to continuing to facilitate the development and growth of the economy. We welcome President Robert Mugabe’s comments. Standard Chartered has taken the conscious decision to continue to maintain our long-standing commitment to doing business in Zimbabwe,” says the bank’s spokesperson, Lillian Hapanyengwi.
Economists say that Zimbabwe’s regulatory framework is uncertain as regulations change without notice while there are always variations in how the laws are implemented. The Bankers Association of Zimbabwe say the banks are engaging the government on their own while the association’s president, George Guvamatanga, the head of Barclays in Zimbabwe, says he is still weighing the implications of Mugabe’s statement.

BRAVING THE INDIGENIZATION CHILL

The future of architecture is evolving before my eyes on the laptop of Luca Frattari. In a series of keystrokes the architectural engineering Ph.D., now a business development manager at software firm Altair, thins out the blocky outer shell of a new skyscraper into a willowy exoskeleton that would stand out even among the gaudier designs in the Dubai skyline. Its irregular lattice leaves room for giant, undulating pools of window glass. Yet when he runs a wind-flow analysis on the simulation, the building’s organic form wicks away stiff breezes far more efficiently than a rectilinear structure. And the reduction in outer material gives the building an excellent chance of going up faster and for less money.
More things should look bony. Millions of years of evolution have honed the skeleton into the perfect shape for survival. Our hollow, long bones are thick and strong where needed, and light and flexible where possible. Their excesses were purged long ago.
Adapting nature’s forms to human problems, a trend called biomimicry, is an idea that has taken root at engineering-intensive firms such as Ford, General Motors, Boeing and Airbus, all of them hungry buyers of technology to improve the shapes of the machines and structures they build. The biggest computer-aided engineering software firms, Ansys, Dassault Systèmes and LMS International, a Siemens subsidiary, have enjoyed double-digit revenue growth in recent years as large customers snap up their pricey suites of simulation and material analysis software. Unseen by drivers and frequent fliers, the straight angles and solid forms under the skins of autos and airliners have been replaced over the past several years by funky-looking ribs that are lighter and stronger than the original. For each hundred pounds trimmed off a car, drivers could save about 1% to 2% on fuel economy, which could add up to billions of dollars nationally, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Even shaving 1 gram off a water bottle would eliminate 160 million pounds of material per year, assuming consumption of 200 million bottles per day, says Thierry Marchal, Ansys’ director of industry marketing for consumer goods.
Altair of Troy, Mich. has a lead over its rivals in a particularly interesting field called topology optimization, according to research firm CIMdata. Altair’s OptiStruct software simulates on metal and carbon-fiber structures the same trial-and-error forces that have shaped bone growth over millennia—but repeats them at semiconductor speed until an engineer arrives at a design that meets the need without any excess material. The process can lead to unique and sometimes nonintuitive shapes that are often 20% to 30% lighter than traditionally formed structures.
The privately held company, cofounded by CEO James Scapa, a Ford veteran, and two others in 1985, got half of its estimated 2012 revenue of $240 million (up 13% from 2011) from the auto industry but is growing 30% year over year in aerospace and electronics, three times the growth of its steady auto business. Airbus used Altair software to shed a thousand pounds off the A380 by redesigning 13 wing ribs on each side of the plane. Altair now works with more than 3,000 clients, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, NASA and the Department of Defense, but it is rapidly spreading the gospel of evolutionary perfection to a wider audience in consumer products and infrastructure and among commercial architects.
In October Altair released what it says is the first simulation and analysis software designed to be easily used by the engineering masses. Called solidThinking Inspire, it will be bundled into Altair’s flagship software package ($20,000 on average) or sold separately for $8,000. Early adopters of Inspire include auto supplier Key Safety Systems and the Pratt Institute in New York. Architects in the U.S. and Europe are planning high-rises to be unveiled later this year in Asia that will look like descendants of the biomorphic forms created by Antoni Gaudi and Frei Otto.
Altair got its inspiration for bone-based software 20 years ago when Scapa and his chief technology officer, Jim Brancheau, found Jeff Brennan in a lab at the University of Michigan. Brennan was a biomechanical engineer studying how humans bones grow; Scapa brought Brennan in to oversee what would become OptiStruct. Brennan spent the early 1990s schlepping a computer from one carmaker to another, struggling to get analytical engineers to accept his OptiStruct software’s counterintuitive visual results. After OptiStruct became part of Altair’s bigger HyperWorks software suite and no longer needed individual salesmen, Brennan eventually took over as CMO. “We brought Jeff in, and for years and years the competition couldn’t see why we did it—they said there was no market,” Scapa says. “Now they are trying to catch up.”
Altair says it has grown at a 14% compounded annual rate since 2004 but has no plans to go public. It is majority owned by its three founders and last raised money eight years ago selling an undisclosed minority stake to General Atlantic for $30 million. Scapa aims to reach $1 billion in revenue by 2020, a stretch goal that largely depends on how much Inspire broadens the user base.
Even if Altair fails to hit the billion-dollar goal, it will be an aesthetic victory for the rest of us as more buildings, cars, trains and gadgets take on the swooping curves beloved by nature.

The Evolution of Everyday Things

Picture this: the biggest horse racing event in Africa, with vast prize money and the top riders in the world. This is what Phindi Kema wanted, but a wrangle with the owners of a racecourse soured this dream. This has left the horse breeder frustrated, desperate and packing her bags. She is off to the United Kingdom, taking her skills with her.
Kema grew up on a farm. Her grandparents were farm laborers and her parents bred pigs, but she broke away and pursued a law degree at Fort Hare University—in the Eastern Cape. After she qualified, she worked as a coordinator for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—a restorative judicial body, which was assembled after the abolition of apartheid in South Africa—and in various senior corporate positions, but the pull of the farm was strong and Kema returned to her roots. She bought a citrus farm near Addo Elephant National Park, in the Eastern Cape, through the Land Affairs Proactive Land Acquisition Strategy (PLAS) program and became a farmer in late 2006. She befriended her neighbor, Elwyn Phillips, who was a horse breeder, and bought his Elandskraal stud farm. She renamed it Iphi’Ntombi—meaning ‘where is the girl?’ in Zulu—after the Zimbabwean-bred champion filly Ipi Tombe.
“She [Ipi Tombe] had a great career and won international races and made a name for Africa. She is now breeding in Kentucky. I suppose, I set a challenge for myself right at the beginning of my career and I’m still at it.”
At the time Kema was the only African Thoroughbred horse breeder in the country. She picked up the trade quickly, but after three years she felt that it was time to move on. She pursued her dream of creating the biggest racing event on the African continent, which led to the start of her company, Africa Race International (ARI). Phumelela Gaming and Leisure, a horse racing and tote betting operator, approached Kema with a deal to buy Arlington Racecourse in the Eastern Cape. The deal was almost complete when Kema became suspicious of certain clauses in the contract. Phumelela wanted all financial guarantees 30 days after signing the agreement even though they had not set an occupation date. The other condition was that Kema had to use Phumelela’s license and was not allowed to purchase her own.
“This was not acceptable to me as it meant that Phumelela would be in control of my entire betting business and fixtures relating to my racing.”
Further research revealed that Phumelela had bought Arlington Racecourse for a mere R1 ($0.10) and expected Kema to pay R50 million ($5.4 million) for it. Kema later found that this was common practice in the industry.
When contacted on the issue, Phumelela declined to comment.
According to Kema, in the past five years, four of the country’s racecourses have been sold for property development. Gosforth Park was sold to Wes Bank and is now a racetrack for motorsport and Newmarket, in Johannesburg, has been sold to retail.
“While other countries are growing the sport, South Africa is stifling the growth of the industry. Other countries look at us and they actually mock South Africa because they understand that this model is not sustainable and this is a recipe for disaster.”
Kema was frustrated with the Arlington Racecourse deal and became vocal, but felt that her words fell on deaf ears. Then she lodged a complaint with the Competition Commission and backed the case with research from her team of lawyers and experts on international horseracing. She lodged another complaint with the public protector to investigate the 1997 agreement, regarding the selling of racecourses between the Gauteng provincial government and the racing industry.
“Further to that, I instituted an R80 million ($8.6 million) civil claim through the Equality Court against the Gauteng provincial government. The respondent failed to oppose the claim and missed the set deadline of October 5, 2012. The matter is still before the courts. I was then invited to Parliament to give the Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry an account of what had happened and put forward recommendations. Lastly, I wrote a letter to the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA) to bring the matter to their attention.”
Kema says the government’s lack of knowledge on the subject made the process even longer and the fact that she was more knowledgeable did not go down well.
“Sometimes people with big titles do not enjoy being told that they have been duped, so they take what you say personally and react accordingly. This tends to ruffle more black and white feathers especially when it comes from a black woman.”
“I am appalled by the way the regulator runs the race office. I am resentful that the rich people have actually stolen the racing assets that belong to the country. This is what this whole issue is about […] that is what is killing South African horse racing.”
As things became complicated Kema’s life became court hearings, law suits and travel between Johannesburg and Port Elizabeth. She could have easily backed down but the inspiration of her mother’s late father, Joseph Wilcot Kavie, kept her strong.
“He owned properties when black people under apartheid laws were prohibited from owning properties. He never saw himself as a victim; he turned every negative situation to his benefit if he could make it when the odds were against him, why would I fail? &#8230; That’s the thought that drives me… I admire so many people but Sol Kerzner, Phuthuma Nhleko and Sir Sam Jonah stand out because they are all groundbreakers, who comfortably transcended so many barriers and Africa has a reason to be proud.”
At the end of February, Kema moved to her spouse’s homeland of the United Kingdom. She’s on familiar ground, having visited the country many times and one of her fondest memories is her visit to the Queen’s stud farm. Her plan is to relax, reflect and possibly write a book.
“I like the British attitude and the UK is my adopted country because it has taught me so much of what I know. In as far as horseracing is concerned, I feel deeply connected with them because they are supportive of my aspirations and do not see me as a threat, precisely because they are experts in this field and therefore have no insecurities.”
So this front runner has removed the blinkers from people’s eyes, even when the odds were against her, she never spit the bit and now it’s time for her to canter.

Racing Uncertainty

Climbing Kilimanjaro is on the bucket list of most people on the African continent. Most of us at the ABN Group have had a personal ambition to make this trek but the opportunity came in the form of a corporate memo from our founder, Rakesh Wahi, who asked for volunteers. All of us that went on this mission enrolled without really understanding the implications of what we had signed up for.
What followed was four months of training and getting ready for our greatest test of physical and mental endurance. We went on several hikes as a team, culminating in the final climb of Sentinel Peak in Drakensburg, South Africa. Through this period we assessed the strengths and weaknesses of team members and came up with a marching order and buddy pairing that in retrospect were the main reasons for our success.
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A few days before we set off for the trip, I was given the responsibility to lead the 15-strong team, including two members joining from Murdoch University Dubai (an affiliate company). Rakesh gave me one task: Do what you need to but make sure that all 15 people make it to the top. Failure was not an option. For a mountain that has a 41% success rate for climbers, this was not an easy goal. Our head guide validated that of the 150 teams he had taken up the mountain over 10 years, only nine had a 100% success rate.
What followed between March 11 and 17 was one of the most exhilarating experiences of self-discovery for each and every one of the team members.
For corporate governance, our travel policy dictated that we set out from Johannesburg in two teams that regrouped in the sleepy town of Moshi in Tanzania. Some of us saw the magnitude of what lay ahead as we saw the majestic Kilimanjaro in the far distance, rising above the clouds at the same altitude at which we were flying. We assembled at the Keys Hotel and shared a memorable dinner of pizzas and beer and a final bath with the understanding that the next seven days would be spent in lesser luxuries.
After a group briefing and an introduction to the team of seven guides, 46 cooks and porters we set out on March 11 for the first day’s hike on the Rongai route. Most of us had packed about 13kg into our backpacks (constituting water and foodstuff) and a 14kg duffel bag was carried by our porters with all our clothing and provisions. We had expected rain on this hike but didn’t realize that it would hit us as soon as we started. Young children walked with us, nonchalantly in the rain, making us forget the discomfort. We ended the first day’s hike after an 11km march that we completed in four hours ending at an altitude of 2,400m. Other than the rain, this was an easy trek. As we walked to our camp site we were greeted by eight yellow tents pitched close together that were to become our home for the next six nights.
Our routine for the first five days was quite consistent; getting ready by 7.30AM, breakfast at 8AM and the daily march from 9AM to 2PM to reach the next base camp. We progressed steadily from 2,400m on day one, to 3,450m on day two, 3,683m on day three, 4,300m on day four and 4,730m on day five. Each day we would acclimatize by walking up about 200m in altitude with the concept of “walk high and sleep low”. We discovered, to our delight, that CNBC Africa presenter, Samantha Loring, is a qualified yoga instructor and she would make the team stretch and do breathing exercises that appeared frivolous when we started out but became our lifeline as we climbed above 4,000m.
Some events became common through our journey: The early breakfast of eggs, porridge and bananas, warm pea or cucumber soup for lunch, welcoming tea and Milo with popcorn at 4PM each day, before acclimatization, and soup with an overdose of starch and protein for dinner. The rule was to finish three liters of water at a bare minimum each day. One thing was clearly evident—organizers were making sure that we packed extra calories for the final assault on the last day.
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The build up for the first five days was gradual and most of the team managed to get by with little or no discomfort. Communications had died with the expended battery life of our cellphones and the solar charging devices were a disappointment. Despite the shortcomings, I did manage to speak with my five-year-old son, who was distraught that daddy was gone for a week; for all of us the contact with families remained comforting and a constant encouragement.
We started the assault on Uhuru Peak at midnight on March 16, with our headlamps providing the much-needed beacon of hope as we progressed slowly, but surely, up a 70 degree gradient. The temperature dipped to approximately -17 degrees and winds picked up as we reached 5,000m. The journey from there to Gilman’s Point, at 5,700m, took us about seven hours. As team leader I was put under the most severe test as I tried to help team members face their individual challenges. We stopped for comfort breaks periodically but stayed together through all that the mountain could throw at us and the whole team made it to Gilman’s Point. This was our first milestone. The journey to Uhuru Peak from Gilman’s Point took approximately two hours and we all finally summited at 9.15AM on March 16.
Reaching Uhuru Peak saw emotions flow from all team members. Tears of joy were the expression of accomplishment and pride that we all felt. Once rested, the team decided to do the Harlem Shake, which was undoubtedly the expression of insanity that overcame everyone for a moment. The team then made its way back to Kibo Hut in three hours to a well-deserved hot lunch and nap before moving down to the next base camp. The ABN team conquered Kilimanjaro to become only the 10th team that our guides had managed to all take up to the top of the mountain.
As team leader, I saw some changes in every one of my team. First and foremost, 15 individuals went up the mountain but one family of 15 came down having accomplished the mission successfully with a priceless bond that will be cherished forever. What did we all learn? Just one lesson: No goal is too great or too small to accomplish if you work slowly and steadily as a team. In addition to this, as a leader I learnt that a leader needs to show genuine concern for his team and be there for them, larger than life, when they need him most.
<h4>Rakesh Wahi—the vice chairman of the ABN360 Group—dreamed up and financed the trip. He is a fit 53-year-old, who spent nine years of active service as an officer in the Indian Army and knows all about rough roads and battles.</h4>
Why Kilimanjaro? 
“The trip was symbolic of where we see ourselves as a business. Climbing Africa’s highest mountain and the highest freestanding mountain in the world resonates with our vision to be Africa’s leading business media conglomerate. The true test of leaders is when you push them over the edge from their comfort zone into a zone of physical and mental hardship, and then observe their ability to think, rationalize, overcome hardship, carry their team members and reach a group goal. The behavior patterns of people change in such grueling conditions and personal survival can sometimes overtake a group goal. But, like in a battlefield, personal matters must become secondary to a bigger cause that everyone must believe in. That cause then defines the success of the team and motivates them to achieve the goal… This kind of physical and mental test cannot be achieved in a beach resort.”
How difficult was the ascent? 
“There were several challenging moments. From a physical point of view, many members developed different ailments from fever, fatigue, insect bites, sunburns and altitude sickness to nausea and stomach-related viruses. On the mental side, the main challenge came on summit night when people had to call for their inner strength to make it to the top.”
How did it feel to stand there proudly at the summit? 
“I could see emotions flowing down each one’s cheeks and the pride on their faces to have made it to the top together. When we started out, there were 15 people with different identities and backgrounds. When we reached the top, I could see that a family was born… On a personal level, it was a great achievement as my son, Sid, was also on the team. It was a great opportunity to spend time with him and see him face his own challenges to make it to the summit, despite getting altitude sickness and severe hypothermia.”
The Harlem Shake? 
“This was indeed a surprise item on the agenda. The average age of the team was under 30 and a lot of their language, music and conversations were foreign to me. I did however, enjoy everything that I heard. I was at a loss when I was asked to join in the Harlem Shake but did it as requested by the team. I rehearsed it with the team at 4,700m and they were overjoyed to see me participate. I think it was a victory lap for the modern generation and could well have been any other form of expression. I thought it was rather cute and unique when I saw the final product on YouTube; after all how many people have behaved like complete lunatics at 6,000m.”
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Author: Forbes Africa

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Money In The Wind