There is no point in speculating as to what Russell Loubser, the outgoing Johannesburg Stock Exchange chief executive officer, will be doing next year—because Loubser himself does not know. He could take the route of a hands-on CEO position at a financial institution, as did previous JSE president, Roy Andersen, at Liberty Life. There is also the option of several independent non-executive directorships, for a quieter life after many years of revolutionizing Africa’s biggest exchange. Another possibility is—corporate governance and Companies Act requirements permitting—to perhaps sit on the exchange board itself as a non-executive director or eventually as chairman.
<div id="attachment_262" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-262" class="size-medium wp-image-262" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CTX7294-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" />Russell Loubser and Nicky Newton &#8211; King</div>
“I am not entertaining any thoughts as to what comes after life at the JSE,” says Loubser, who originally comes from Slurry, near Mafikeng.
“Until the end of this year, I remain completely focused on my work at the exchange. To prematurely assess opportunities could give rise to conflicts of interest. People are approaching me and my response is to come back at the end of the year, if still interested. Nothing is going to distract me in these last few months.”
A few things are certain for Loubser, regarding life after the JSE. As a member of the South African Airways board, the link will continue. So, too, will his three-year ministerial appointment as a member of the Takeover Regulation Panel, previously the Securities Regulation Panel. But as for the rest of it, Loubser says there is genuinely nothing definitive. “It’s not as if I have something planned and will reveal it at the last moment.”
An initial five-year contract, starting early 1997, ended up being 15 years of leadership. When Loubser joined the JSE, trading volumes in that first year were 17,854 billion shares, and 2,3 million deals. For 2010, volumes were 71,252 billion shares from 23,8 million deals.
Loubser always credits his team: “It has been an absolute pleasure to work with people who have been so dedicated to improving the exchange and developing themselves. The early days were extremely difficult. The press was relentlessly critical, the exchange at that time was wholly owned by the stockbrokers, it was not offering value, and was viewed as a necessity in order to trade equities. At that time, no one could imagine demutualisation, listing and creating value for the financial community. With this committed team, we proved our critics wrong.”
Loubser’s management style is to surround himself with smart people and give them lots of space. “You then get the best out of them.”
When Loubser took over, the JSE had an extremely poor reputation at home and abroad. Despite being the largest emerging market at that time, and surprisingly highly ranked by size in world terms, it was seen as an inefficient boys’ club plagued by insider trading and front running. Roy Andersen had made a start with transformation, such as implementing new software and trading systems, and the Big Bang deregulation which included allowing corporate membership of the exchange.
“The criticism we received in those initial years was fair and completely justifiable,” says Loubser. “But even when we started demonstrating our progress, the taint persisted. We had a difficult audience to win over and the first few years were very testing.”
With the JSE clearly demonstrating its ability and achievements, and cleverly diversifying its income stream, attitudes started to change and criticisms became compliments. However, brokers would still like to see lower trading prices. “We are fully conscious of this,” says Loubser, “and are benchmarked against other exchanges by independent parties to see how competitive our pricing is. Trading revenues are a simple function of volumes and pricing, and if volumes grow, there is certainly scope to reduce pricing.”
Despite having accomplished so much at the JSE, there is one huge task that Loubser regrets he will not be able to see through to the end—the complete overhaul of the bond market, which the JSE acquired in 2009. This particular market comes in for much criticism regarding its antiquated telephonic trading, selective pricing, and operating on a foundation of personal connections and relationships. The wish list for this market is a digital, visible, transparent central order book that promotes price discovery and improves liquidity, especially for languishing corporate and municipal bonds.
“My trading career started in the fixed income market, so I would have liked to have been on the ground and involved when the JSE cleans up the bond market, as it did with the equity market,” says Loubser, who represented the banking sector during the formation of the Bond Market Association, now the Bond Exchange of South Africa. He has no doubt that incoming CEO Nicky Newton-King will be able to achieve this. “It will be quite a challenge for her, but she has a fantastic executive committee on which she can rely, and she will need their talents. Severe changes as to how the bond market works are imperative and will be good for South African financial markets.”
One disappointment—despite much effort—is that other exchanges in Africa have not taken up offers to use the JSE’s technology and platforms in order to make their own markets more efficient. When Loubser took over at the JSE, he looked to exchanges in countries such as Australia and Singapore. “We were shocked by our glaringly obvious poor services and huge inefficiencies, and this kicked us into action. Exchanges in the rest of Africa should go through this same self-examination and take a good look at themselves and the potential they have to play in transforming their markets and economies. As yet, they are not seeing the urgency and benefits of an innovative exchange. A good exchange is a strategic national asset.”
Unlike many CEOs in South Africa, Loubser is not afraid to make political comment when appropriate. He has addressed issues such as government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi’s accusations that blacks do not own enough of the companies listed on the JSE board, and he supported Trevor Manuel, South Africa’s Minister in the Presidency in charge of the National Planning Commission, for taking Manyi to task on racism. “At present, South Africa does ‘work’. But this does not mean our leaders can simply stop at this point. It can be so much better and we should not settle for mediocrity,” says Loubser. His frankness also extends to the tragedy of Zimbabwe under the Mugabe regime.
As the JSE grows increasingly more attractive as a takeover target, Loubser says this type of decision would be for the shareholders. “But my recommendation at this point in time would be to wait a few more years. The exchange is presently working on many things that would add value. At a later stage, a tie-up with an appropriate party would be beneficial to shareholders, and would help take the exchange to the next level.”
Loubser says that despite persuasive efforts from his staff to throw him a huge goodbye party, that would not be his style and he prefers a quiet exit. “I would rather get all my staff together in the auditorium a few days before I leave to say my farewells and thanks.” Leaving the JSE after an incredible 15 years will no doubt be heart-rending for Loubser.
“I will miss the JSE a lot. Let’s just say it will be a very difficult and emotional time for me.”
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New JSE CEO—more than well prepared for the role
Nicky Newton-King has been the JSE’s deputy CEO since 2002, joining the exchange in 1996. Her professional qualifications and experience are legal, whereas Loubser is a chartered accountant with a merchant banking and trading background. Prior to this, Newton-King was a partner at legal firm Webber Wentzel, specialising in the securities and financial services industry, with the JSE as a client.
As the JSE is regarded as one of the best regulated exchanges in the world, Newton-King feels strongly about the development of financial markets across the rest of the continent.
“It is time for African exchanges to stand up and make some brave choices if they want to harness emerging market appetite and attract significant international investment. They run the risk of missing out on the emerging market story if they do not focus on building large and sustainable exchanges.”
African stock markets are now at a point of critical inflection, as was the JSE in the early 1990s. “The JSE has been through its much-needed development, and has the battle scars to show for it,” says Newton-King. “It is now by far the largest exchange in Africa and internationally respected. African exchanges need to similarly decide on their strategies for the future. Are they going to stand alone and individually compete for business, or will they work together to leapfrog stock exchange development in Africa?”
Newton-King says that African stock markets must realize that no one owes them a living. “They are not there to serve themselves. If they do not provide offerings of an appropriate and international quality to investors and issuers, they will be bypassed.”
One route would be to regionally harmonize the rules in African capital markets, as seen in the European Union. However, Newton-King highlights the problem of which markets would be willing to concede to the rules of others. Another possibility for African exchanges is to promote cross-listings, in which a company is listed in more than one country, as dual-listings generally increase trade in the home country. Newton-King says that ideally, the dual-listed companies should come to the JSE for their secondary listing—rather than go offshore to London or other such markets. “African companies should preferably stay on the continent.”
Yet another possibility is to create African technology hubs that allow execution in multiple venues through a single channel of access. Newton-King notes that exchanges must then be willing to collaborate and resolve issues such as hub ownership and operational responsibility. A fourth route would be to establish Pan African stock exchanges, by collapsing existing individual exchanges into regional ones. However, Newton-King again highlights the potential problems of ownership and location, and believes this way is more suited to environments which are starting from nothing and have no legacy exchanges to deal with.
Newton-King recommends a combination of cross-listings and technology hubs to promote African stock exchange development. “This would lead to meaningful and accelerated change which would best serve the interests of issuers and investors. African stock exchanges should not go it alone. They should have the courage to work together to create robust capital markets across the continent.”
Looking to the JSE, Newton-King says one important strategy for the exchange in the near term is to decide on a trading model for the bond market. “We have now owned this market for two years and are focused on determining a model which promotes transparency and hence liquidity.”
She anticipates an exciting future for the JSE. “This environment is constantly changing. New regulations, technological developments and innovative products keep us motivated in our aim of linking South Africa to global markets and maintaining our position as a world-class exchange.”
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Farewell The King Of The Exchange… Long Live The Newton-King!

Alfonso Ippolito wakes up in another hotel room in Johannesburg; his Italian home is eight hours away by plane. He checks his email anxiously for updates and prepares for another day of meetings and frustration. A double-breasted suit, tie, shiny shoes and he’s on his way.
At the same time, in another part of Johannesburg, Mosheen Moosa is gearing up for another sparkling day surrounded by diamonds and African jewelry. No tie around his neck. This man is as laid-back as he is passionate about his business.
<div id="attachment_258" style="width: 209px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-258" class="size-medium wp-image-258" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/1-5-199x300.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="300" />Alfonso Ippolito</div>
One Italian, the other South African; both at either end of the long investment chain in Gauteng—South Africa’s place of gold, as the name says. The former has money to invest—the latter needs it like a shot in the arm.
Ippolito—the provider—has been traveling in Africa since 1982. He is the president of Convivium Africa, a non-profit organization carrying out social impact projects in Africa. South Africa’s Gauteng province wants this kind of investment to build the infrastructure and skills to attract more.
“Gauteng contributes a minimum 25% to South Africa’s gross domestic product; if it were a country, it would be the fifth-largest economy on the continent,” says Ebrahim Patel, South Africa’s Minister of Economic Development.
Gauteng competes with countries like Nigeria, Brazil, India and Ghana for this precious foreign investment. Size doesn’t always matter. Gauteng needs a high growth rate, ease of doing business and good infrastructure to have any hope of winning.
This is where Ippolito comes in. In 2004, he was invited by the South African ambassador in Italy to attend a session on investment opportunities in Gauteng. He took on the job of selling the province to European companies. It wasn’t easy.
“We tried many projects but didn’t succeed,” says Ippolito.
In 2009, he hit the jackpot. Italgest SpA, an Italian company specializing in renewable energy, took a keen interest and set up Italgest Energy in South Africa. The proposed project is a $520.5 million photovoltaic plant in Bronkhorstspruit, Gauteng. Italgest has spent at least $2.6 million over two years on the project that fits into South Africa’s target to reduce its carbon emissions by 34% by 2020.
<div id="attachment_259" style="width: 211px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-259" class="size-medium wp-image-259" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Mohseen-sorting-201x300.jpg" alt="" width="201" height="300" />Mosheen Moosa</div>
Italgest’s plan is simple enough. The land in Bronkhorstspruit will have 1.3 million solar panels placed 1-1.5 meters from the ground. The panels will be manufactured by Sharp in Italy and shipped to South Africa.
The proposed 18-month project has run into numerous road blocks. The constant change in rules and requirements are making Italgest’s project that much harder to see through. A 75 megawatt cap has been placed on the plant’s capacity. The former 150MW project has had to be split in two, forcing the costly set-up of a second company.
Despite chasing a moving target for the past two years, Italgest is still interested in the project and connecting it to the power grid. The construction could create 1,000 jobs, plus the 120 needed to run the plants.
The company projects returns of 17-21%, but this will depend on the electricity tariff and the bank’s rate for the project financing.
Ippolito’s only problem with investment in Gauteng is the bureaucracy. Despite help from the Gauteng Economic Development Agency (GEDA), he feels that there is a lack of co-operation between provincial and national governments.
“More facilitation and help are needed on a national level; even more, the bank system is slow and conservative,” he says.
Ippolito says one of South Africa’s top four banks sent an email approving the financing for the project on a Friday; by the Monday morning, a second email arrived pulling the financing.
Italgest missed the November 4 deadline to submit its final bid for the two photovoltaic projects because it did not receive the documents on time.
Another sign of bureacracy that may lead to a squandered opportunity. Italgest hopes to return in March and try again.
While Italian Ippolito is investing in the province of Gauteng, South Africa’s Mosheen Moosa needs investment for his business, African Romance.
Moosa is a lawyer. He was a young activist during South Africa’s apartheid era, with a law degree from the University of Witwatersrand. He is a human rights lawyer who joined Parliament after the country’s first democratic elections in 1994. In his five years as a senator, he chaired the Justice Committee that drew up the Bill of Rights and the Courts and Administration of Justice of South Africa’s Constitution.
Moosa left all of this to set up African Romance, which cuts and polishes diamonds.
It is a rare business in Africa—most diamonds are exported to the likes of Cartier, Chopard and Tiffany &amp; Co for cutting.
“Exporting raw materials is exporting jobs,” says Patel.
According to the Kimberley Process statistics, Russia was the top producer of rough diamonds globally in terms of volume, 32.86 million carats, and Botswana the top producer by value, $2.59 billion. The 2011 global rough diamond production rose 39% by value and approximately 7% by volume to 133.12 million carats.
A total of 13.67 million carats valued at $1.8 billion were produced in South Africa in 2010, ranking the country fourth by value. Most of Africa’s diamonds are exported for cutting and polishing. The top global importers in 2010 were Europe, India, Israel, Dubai and China.
African Romance stands against this tide. The South African company is bent on beneficiation at home and this needs investment to do so.
African Romance was launched in 2007, after two years of preparation. Moosa and his team started with an investment of around $6.5 million, followed by
$10.6 million in 2008-2009. The capital went into factories, equipment and rough diamonds.
African Romance buys its rough diamonds in South Africa. These are cut and polished by South Africans, adding further value before export. Some 50% of the diamonds are exported.
The diamond industry is a very closed one; the barriers to entry are high and it takes years to break in.
In buying South African diamonds, African Romance competes with international buyers that are paying as little as 2% interest rates, giving them an advantage over the 11% rate that the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) demands from Moosa.
The company has retail stores in Johannesburg’s Rosebank Mall, Sandton and OR Tambo International Airport. “We want people to know that Africa is more than just masks and baskets,” says Moosa.
In the last three months of 2008, African Romance brought in approximately $650,745, followed by
$4.5 million in 2009 and $11.7 million in 2010.
WakeHold is the holding company for WakeGem, which owns the African Romance brand. The shareholders are the WakeGem Workers Trust, 5%, and the Gauteng Department of Economic Development, 30%. The stakeholders are GEDA and the IDC.
African Romance needs $13 to $19 million in investment in the next three years. This will go towards increasing its exports and setting up more stores in the continent and further afield.
African Romance has come a long way in development funding and will need deep pockets for its dream of listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) by 2015.
Doors and cheque books have not opened easily for Moosa and his vision. South African banks have not been a part of African Romance’s story. “South African banks are not builders… they are spoilt, want easy money and are not creative enough,” says Moosa.
It all comes down to investment. Is Africa’s richest province selling itself well enough?
The institution responsible for selling Gauteng to investors is GEDA. According to its acting CEO, Siphiwe Ngwenya, its financial system, large and industrialized economy, transport, infrastructure, natural resources and stability make it an ideal investment destination.
GEDA, which held the Gauteng Investor Conference in Johannesburg, in October, stands against the storm. In 2010, $247.2 million in investments flowed into South Africa’s Gauteng province. The target for 2011 is $260.3 million.
In these difficult times, it is going to take a lot of nerve and skill for Africa to lure a lot more Ippolitos from Europe to a hotel room in Gauteng.
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<h3>Cheer Up In 2012— It Is Going To Get Better</h3>
Political economist Paul Laudicina, the CEO of global management consultants AT Kearney, has worked on Capitol Hill in Washington—as Joe Biden’s chief of staff—and in Africa in the oil business. He believes the economic outlook for Africa in the new year may be brighter than expected.
<div id="attachment_257" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-257" class="size-medium wp-image-257" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/7-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" />Paul Laudicina</div>
The idea of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps is no stranger to Paul Laudicina. His ancestors stepped off the boat in New York in the 1920s, penniless and tired after a long journey from Palermo in Sicily. The immigrant family has spent most of the last century concentrating on education, climbing the economic ladder and acceptance.
“My parents wanted us to be more American than Micky Mantle (the New York Yankees baseball legend). We didn’t speak Italian in the house,” he chuckles.
Laudicina is upbeat about the prospect of Africa pulling itself up by its bootstraps.
“Eight out of 10 of the world’s fastest-growing economies are in Africa. Africa’s population will overtake that of China by 2025 and overtake India by 2050. In terms of population and resources, Africa is the last frontier and has great potential. You get Indian technology, Chinese manufacturing, Middle East capital and energy, plus African human and natural resources; put them all together and you have more economic power and more growth than any other part of the world,” he says.
Laudicina believes South Africa, which accounts for 18% of regional investment, is likely to strengthen its position when it comes to investment. He believes that when the new foreign direct investment rankings are published by his company at the end of the year, South Africa will improve on its 18th standing in the world.
“South Africa has the most hopeful and economic structures in the continent,” he says.
On the other side of the investment coin ?
“Business here is not going to come flocking unless people are prepared to take the human resources and train them into productive, income-earning, consuming people instead of protestors on the streets baying about income disparity.”

Selling The Place Of Gold

The South Sudanese were overjoyed at their independence and the prospects of deciding their own destiny. This is understandable following half a century of civil war.
<div id="attachment_254" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-254" class="size-medium wp-image-254" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/gi_0294441.jpg.-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Sun setting behind Boma National Park hills, Boma -Jongalei State, South Sudan</div>
The euphoria of a new nation is likely to fade given the formidable challenge of building from scratch.
South Sudan still bears the wounds of decades of civil strife. The country is one of the poorest  on the continent.  According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), half of the country lives below the poverty line.
Government will address this grave social situation with revenues from oil production. Oil revenues make  up 98% of government coffers. The stalemate with Sudan over oil revenue sharing and a lack of a robust budget framework could adversely affect fiscal expenditure earmarked for social and economic needs. This will in turn delay poverty alleviation.
Donor funding could bolster government revenues but donor funding alone will not be sufficient to tackle poverty.  Moreover, with Western government budgets under severe pressure, aid from the West will by no means flow freely.
In addition to social expenditure, infrastructure development will also form a significant portion of government expenditure. Infrastructure is practically non-existent in South Sudan with just 100km of paved road in the country. The construction sector has rarely been in such demand. Economic growth hinges on the development of infrastructure.
Government macroeconomic policy will focus on diversifying the economy away from oil production. This will ensure that non-oil industries are developed and contribute to the economy. One such industry is likely to be agriculture. Agriculture is seen as ‘low-hanging fruit’ and could be a short-term option. South Sudan is blessed with extremely fertile land with plenty of water in the White Nile Valley.
South Sudan does have more than formidable task ahead of it. Building a nation from scratch, and in the current economic climate, is no small feat. To achieve its ambitions the government has to build the necessary capacity and institutions on which to base the economy on. South Sudan has approached the IMF for technical assistance.  The country is awaiting IMF membership following its application in April.
<h3>Voting Facts</h3>
The voting proceeded remarkably smoothly with few serious complaints across South Sudan. With the referendum passed, the disputed north-south border would become the next issue to resolve. Some feared that the specter of an all-out border war would rise.
A simultaneous referendum was supposed to be held in Abyei on whether to become part of South Sudan but it has been postponed due to conflict over demarcation and residency rights. The capital of Abyei is Abyei Town. The area is disputed by South Sudan but controlled by the Sudanese government.

The Daunting Task Of Building The New Nation On The Block

Catherine Masinde had a front row seat—or rather, a front row tent—for the difficult birth of South Sudan. It was tough in Juba in the years leading up to statehood; there were three cars on the road, it was muddy and uncomfortable.
In the last year, both Masinde and South Sudan have moved onwards and upwards. South Sudan has secured statehood and Masinde has moved up to what she calls a “half star” hotel. It may be tiny, but at least it has air-conditioning. This Kenyan is the World Bank’s investment climate specialist in South Sudan.
The eyes of the world were on the birth of South Sudan when it became the world’s newest state in July 2011, a moment the people had longed for and voted for.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-246" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/C29R8E-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
So what does 2012 and beyond hold for a country with the odds stacked against it? It has suffered two civil wars and the economy is precariously dependent on oil. More than half a century of war has left the country frozen in time; building it up will take a lot of time, hard work and investment.
South Sudan is covered in dirt roads that turn to mud when it rains. Electricity is for the lucky 1% and comes from expensive diesel generators. Despite a combined GDP with the North of $30 billion, an estimated four billion barrels in oil reserves and a rich mineral base, 90% of the population lives below the poverty line.
Masinde, who is helping the government of South Sudan rebuild and reform to win investment, is seeing signs of economic recovery.
The three private cars rolling along the dirt roads of Juba in 2005 are now competing in traffic with more than 1,000 vehicles.
“It’s a huge task but as they say: surely surely, slowly slowly,” says Masinde.
Business registries have risen from 136 in 2005 to more than 12,000. About 65% of these are in the service industry, with half of those in construction. The country is a blank slate for the builder.
Excel Construction Ltd carried out the World Bank-funded construction of two education centers in Juba. South Sudan Logistics has been building lodges and clinics since 2005.
The government of the United States is paving a 200km road from Juba to the Ugandan border. Uganda is one of South Sudan’s major trade partners. Hotels have sprung up and Juba International Airport is buzzing. Investment is also going into regional airports.
“Any hand trying to lend to us cannot be denied,” says Peter Bior, South Sudan’s information officer.
Masinde agrees: “Government needs partnerships with private industry to builda country.”
Masinde’s team has helped establish a new Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment. The former Ministry of Investment has turned into an investment promotion agency. The Ministry of Justice is being used to strengthen the Business Registry.  The government has also instituted numerous Acts ranging from the Investment Promotion Act to the Personal Income Act.
“The business environment is catching up with the other East African countries. Registering a company takes 15 days and this will improve with time,” says Masinde.
<div id="attachment_245" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-245" class="size-medium wp-image-245" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/A80N9T-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Nile River in Juba, South Sudan</div>
South Sudan is also pushing to diversify its economy away from oil.
Agriculture is one industry that the country is looking to build. South Sudan is 644,000 sq.km, with at least 30 million hectares of arable land. Only 4.5% of this land is working.
South Sudan has formed bad habits—more than 50 years of war has created dependency on food imports and the World Food Programme.
South Sudan imports its fruit, vegetables and poultry from Kenya and Uganda. This raises questions about food security. Refugees flooding back into the country are putting pressure on an already delicate food balance. The country is prone to floods and drought, but with effective planning, maize, millet, cassava, rice and sesame seeds can be grown. There is also potential for sugar.
“We continue to encourage the civil population to utilize their minor skills [in subsistence farming] but we are looking towards larger operators for commercial farming,” says Bior.
Land grabbing has been a problem in South Sudan. This has prompted the government to create a progressive Land Act (2009). With plans to get the primary sector underway and the infrastructure up and running, there is a call for more manufacturing. There is already an increase in light manufacturing like brick making and the construction of doors, gates and frames.
A leading international company that has seen the immense manufacturing potential in South Sudan is SABMiller. It invested $37 million in its Juba operation, Southern Sudan Beverages Ltd. The brewery manufactures beer called White Bull, soft drinks and bottled water. South Sudanese took royalties from the deal. SABMiller received $1 million from the African Enterprise Challenge Fund, a $120 million private sector fund. This, along with
$2 million from the company will be used by FARM-Africa to work with local small-scale farmers who will grow the cassava SABMiller buys to make beer.
“This project will convert what is currently a subsistence crop into a cash crop, creating valuable and sustainable economic opportunities in a fragile region,” says Mark Bowman, managing director of SABMiller Africa.
<div id="attachment_244" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-244" class="size-medium wp-image-244" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/White-Bull-Lager-Pack-Shot-300x256.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="256" />White Bull Lager</div>
From land mines, to beer, to the second Garden of Eden—in the words of the marketing men. Tourism is a market that has yet to be tapped. The South Sudanese government took charge and deployed delegations to countries like Zimbabwe, which profit from tourism in adversity.
The country sits alongside the Nile and is rich in wildlife with a history of a large antelope migration. Al Ain Wildlife, an Emirati company, will be constructing, as per its lease agreement, luxury hotels and tented camp resorts within Boma National Park.
With all the possibilities in business, training and skills development, infrastructure, agriculture and tourism, all eyes are on the blank page that is South Sudan.
The country is counting on its acceptance into the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA); the East African Community (EAC); the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA); and the European Union to help it gain access to key markets. But most importantly, it is counting on the return of its people and their skills.
The people of South Sudan must band together to shape their country into a formidable one. It truly is a new beginning. Happy New Year, South Sudan and good luck—you are going to need it.
<h3>The Oil Question</h3>
The former Sudan’s oil lies in the South, with the distribution network and refineries in the North. This has always meant that the two nations at war with each other shared the oil revenue. With its dependence it would be ideal for the South to take charge of all its resources, but this is a delicate situation as the North also depends on the oil revenue and would not easily allow revenues to dry up.  Soon after its independence, South Sudan was in talks with Kenya to build a new pipeline between the two countries. This could take years to achieve.

Building A Country One Brick And Dollar At A Time

Manu Chandaria is no spring chicken, but he has a spring in his step. The 82-year-old chairman of the Comcraft Group has been on the regional economic radar screen for 10 years through his unflinching support for the East African Community—a common market with a combined population of more than 130 million and a GDP of $75 billion. He
<div id="attachment_240" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-240" class="size-medium wp-image-240" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Manu1-4-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Manu Chandaria, Chairman of Comcraft Group</div>
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reasons—like free trade proponents—that pooling populations, skills, expertize and production can create the economies of scale and the huge markets that business craves. There’s even talk of the fledgling state, South Sudan, joining the EAC.
“Politics doesn’t put food on the table,” says Chandaria, touching the raw nerve that threatens the pace of EAC integration. Politics killed the first attempt in 1977, when Kenya’s then president, Jomo Kenyatta, fell out with his Tanzanian counterpart, Julius Nyerere, over whether to adopt capitalist or socialist policies. Chandaria has no such doubts.
“We need to help our people to better their lives. That can only be done if businesses have enough space to grow and expand. That’s how jobs are created, incomes improved and GDPs grown,” he says.
The business community views a robust regional economy as a trigger for productivity, economies of scale and competitiveness. It is a wonder why some Kenyan bureaucrats, legend has it, toasted the collapse of the idea with champagne more than 40 years ago.
The 21st century version of the EAC is fashioned along the lines of the European Union, which has monetary union of 27 member countries and one central bank. The EU is currently battling debt troubles among its key economies, like Greece, Italy and Spain, pushing analysts to speculate that EAC monetary union may mean more of the same trouble in Africa.
Richard Sezibera, the Rwanda-based secretary general of the EAC, says uncertainties created by the financial crisis in the EU—the biggest financier of the protocol in terms of funds and technical assistance—won’t affect the EAC.
“Although the East African Monetary Union (EAMU) has been patterned on the Euro Monetary Union, lessons drawn from the ongoing crisis and also the 2008 world financial crisis will ultimately shape it,” he says.
Chandaria, like Sezibera, is stubbornly optimistic, even if the dream of union remains about as elusive as democracy in some of the East African states.
“We are finding it very difficult,” he says with zeal. “Will it really work? That’s the question we were discussing at our regional forums. People are still Kenyan, Tanzanian or Ugandan. It can’t work like that. We need to get to a level where we are East African first, East African second, East African third and the rest can follow… You have to know your business and how to tackle the differences… Otherwise, you will be killed.”
There are plenty of flies in the ointment. Chandaria says Tanzania wants to be in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) and EAC at the same time, while Uganda is fiercely protective of its markets against bigger and ferocious business rivals from Kenya. Kenya and Uganda are in COMESA, from which Tanzania pulled out a few years ago. Not so good for a budding economic bloc.
“It is not working the way we wanted. We are just creating unnecessary jobs for so many people instead of building institutions and teaching the people to get the best out of it, so we can get better GDP,” says Chandaria.
The EAC aims to improve earnings for member countries, but every country differs—politically, legally and culturally—making it hard for companies to operate cross-border businesses.
Even the EAC secretariat acknowledges this. “Following the completion of the ratification of the protocol on the common market, the complex and long march towards transforming the EAC region into a common or single market begins with resolve and fervor,” said EAC secretary general Juma Mwapachu during the launch on July 1, 2010. “It is important to underline the words ‘complex and long march’.”
The process is complex in terms of what is required to be undertaken at the levels of the partner states and in certain respects, at the level of the EAC itself. All five countries have a common external tariff; an identical tax applied to imports from outside the bloc, and they allow duty-free regional trade with the exception of Kenya, the largest and most advanced economy of the five. The common market aims to build on this and enable the free movement of people, capital and services, and abolish import duties.
The EAC’s ambitions go beyond pure economics. The plan is for the common currency in 2012 to set up the groundwork for a political federation by 2020. Yet the other member states worry that Kenya, which is the economic powerhouse of the five, could end up being the dominant player.
It’s easy to understand why Chandaria, the son of a former shop attendant who built the business empire, is so passionate about integration. A Kenyan-born entrepreneur who returned from studies abroad to take charge of the family business, Chandaria has worked in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya. In the past 50 years, the Chandaria family has transformed a scrappy medium-ranked business into a major global player with some of the most coveted brands, including roofing iron sheets, electronics, software, kitchenware, pots and pans. He won’t give figures about the net worth—the businesses are jealously private—but simple calculation points to a conglomerate worth millions of dollars.
Comcraft has invested in steel rolling, aluminizing, galvanizing, color coating and profiling. The companies include Mabati Rolling Mills Ltd in Kenya, Aluminium Africa Ltd (Alaf Ltd) in Tanzania, Uganda Baati, Safintra Steel in Zambia, Safintra Steel in Mozambique and Safintra Steel in Malawi. The others are Safintra Johannesburg, Safintra Durban, Safintra Cape Town, Safal Steel in Cato Ridge near Durban and Midget Steel in Nigeria. The group also has a presence in the pipe and section manufacturing division in Insteel Ltd in Kenya, Alaf Ltd Tanzania, Uganda Baati and Hoech Pipe in Nigeria.
Chandaria, who steered Mabati Rolling Mills to one of the most successful companies in the Comcraft stable, says success has taken a concerted effort of family, understanding, higher education and vision in entrepreneurship. “It’s basically the principle of joint family,” he says, sipping herbal tea at his palatial home. “Zero multiplied by zero is zero, one multiplied by one is one; until you reach two, where two times two is four, which gives you a base for linear multiplicity of four times four to get sixteen and so on. We decided we want multiplicity.”
That’s his mathematical way of explaining how his family teamed, with his in-laws, to build a business empire—from the pots and pans to iron sheets to manufacturing, electronics and software. Not very many people manage such a feat. This Indian family from Savrashtra, Gurjarat, has proved that blood relations can also build a strong bond for business.
This is a big lesson for African entrepreneurs who often go it alone in business and fizzle out, or at best, start small and remain so. In Kenya, the Indian community dominates businesses: in retail, think Nakumatt Holdings owned by the Atul Shah family; in manufacturing, think edible oil maker Bidco, owned by Vimal Shah, who controls virtually the whole of Kenya’s industrial area portfolio in Nairobi and major towns.
When Manu Chandaria’s illiterate father came to Kenya 96 years ago, he had a simple mission: to earn 4,000 rupees and return to Gurjarat.
<div id="attachment_241" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-241" class="size-medium wp-image-241" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Manu1-23-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />Chandaria with Aruna, his wife of 56 years</div>
But after a period of super-high growth, almost all the low-hanging fruit is gone. Now the group is left with expanding its existing business lines and scouting for opportunities in emerging sectors like ICT.
Chandaria joined Kaluworks in 1951, alongside his brother, a food technologist, and two other siblings—a civil engineer and campus graduate. Then Kaluworks had 40 workers and a grocery supply business. “We decided that everybody was going to work hard, from Monday to Saturday, and if there was maintenance on Sunday, we worked on Sunday. From 40 people, in five years’ time, we had 500 people. That cooperation planted the seeds of partnership that expanded the workforce to 800 people by 1960.”
Chandaria was sent to Uganda, the only country that was known to be rich in those days. There was a joke in town that Uganda would earn, and Kenya would spend, by selling them products. So he opened an office there and undercut the competition.
The dawn of independence in the early sixties opened new investment opportunities in newly autonomous states, and Comcraft went on a spree. It ventured its iron sheet business in Tanzania (Mabati Ltd), Zambia (Galco), Uganda (Bati Ltd) and Ethiopia (Ethiopian Steel), making it a pan-African business in just five years. “What we knew we duplicated, triplicated, four times, five times…” he says.
The group’s strength is in teamwork and building multiple plants in various markets. This is then boosted by Chandaria’s shrewdness in creating strong and loyal management teams. But he admits the group’s leadership is not always able to attend to difficult situations in time, leading to losses or lost opportunities. The company has also been slow in training enough numbers of management teams for existing and future expansion.
In 1953, Chandaria proposed a charity foundation, but his father initially rejected the idea. “You lived too much in America; we are not Ford Foundation or Chrysler,” said his father.
Today, Chandaria’s foundation is easily the biggest and one of the oldest charity organizations in the country. Some of its notable contributions in Kenya include Chandaria School of Business at United States International University (USIU); Chandaria Business Innovation and Incubation Centre, recently launched at Kenyatta University; and the Chandaria Emergency Centre at Nairobi Hospital, to mention but three. The foundation has done lots in helping the poor, in rebuilding houses and schools of those displaced in the post-election violence, and in educating bright children from poor families.
Philanthropy is the in-thing for the super-rich these days, with US investment guru Warren Buffet urging fellow billionaires to give at least half of their wealth to charity. In most of Africa, it is manifested mainly in corporate social responsibility—planting a tree here or donating a cheque there.
“If you can’t give what you have—experience, knowledge, philosophy,” Chandaria says, “I don’t know what else you can give. I can make a swimming pool of whisky, but I don’t drink. I have compassion for others. I have no hobbies because my game is to serve. I walk in slums and children come to play in my compound.”
As politicians struggle to fit their interests in the East African frame, it is clear that to achieve integration, and urgently so, the region could need more Chandarias.

Hope Springs Eternal For The EU Of East Africa

It was a Friday afternoon, June 4 2010, just a few days before one of the biggest days in African history. Flags were on the streets and the mood was festive in the countdown to the 2010 World Cup—the first time the greatest tournament on earth had kicked off on Africa’s red soil.
Mandla Sibeko strolled, in a mellow mood, towards Green Point Stadium in Cape Town, happy in the knowledge that by the opening ceremony on June 11 his job would be done—the end of years of struggle with the rigorous rules of the soccer governing body, FIFA. An angry phone call shattered this mellow mood and ushered in Sibeko’s worst day.
<div id="attachment_235" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-235" class="size-medium wp-image-235" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/282-18_1-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" />Mandla Sibeko thinking about his worst day</div>
Sibeko was used to struggle. He was born in Johannesburg, the youngest of six children, and grew up in poverty near Nelspruit in South Africa’s north-eastern Mpumalanga province; his first school lesson was held under a tree in the village of Kwaggafontein and the floors of the classrooms were made of cow dung, for want of concrete.
“Whenever I smell cattle dung, I think of those early school days,” says Sibeko.
Luckily for Sibeko, his mother was a domestic worker for a wealthy white family in Johannesburg and they offered to pay for his education.
“They have moved to Australia and I sent them an email the other day saying that decision changed my life. They wrote back to say they were proud to do so. It is amazing how one decision can change your life,” says Sibeko with a smile.
From the age of eight, Sibeko went to the elite St Martin’s School in Johannesburg, followed by a degree in law at Wits University. By the age of 24 he had set up his own business, making TV programs for the SABC. In  2007, he became the first person to open a Pick n Pay supermarket—once a preserve of the suburbs—in Soweto.
“In all these businesses I fell and got up many times. Soweto business is the hardest money you will ever earn, the customers are so demanding. I was working from 5am to midnight every day. We wanted to prove you could do business in the townships and we doubled our turnover in the first year.”
Sibeko became a shareholder in Identity and Tone Digital signage companies and then, while still in his late 20s, came the offer of a key job in the staging of the first ever World Cup in Africa. In 2008, British company Icon, which had helped to stage three World Cups, made Sibeko the CEO, along with a 40% stake, of their South African subsidiary. The job was to oversee the signage for the entire tournament. It was a huge job and Sibeko also saw it as a way to strike a blow for Africa.
“In my work I wanted to tackle this Afro pessimism—we dealt with people who doubted us. People were asking us: “do you really know what you are doing?”
The job entailed making sure all was correct on the flags, buses, hotels, signposts and banners at the country’s 10 World Cup stadiums.
“It was painful because you have to think for people. Everyone has an opinion, the Local Organizing Committee has an opinion, FIFA has an opinion; no one is right or wrong. Signage alone is a problem. Sometimes it arrives and is the wrong size and you have to send it back to Bloemfontien on a truck. Print quality can be poor, colors wrong and the position of the logo can be wrong. FIFA is very fussy—it’s their way or no way. They want it to be done better than the last World Cup.”
So Sibeko oversaw a rigorous system of checks. There was a long list of checks before the signs got to the printers; at the printers there was another check; then the signs were checked again before they were loaded onto trucks and yet again at their destination.
All this counted for nothing at 2pm on June 4 2010 when a top FIFA official screamed down the phone at Sibeko, just hours before an inspection team was due to tour Green Point Stadium.
“She was furious. There was no kindness about it, it was: ‘you guys have messed it up!’
The terrible truth was the misspelt word: “Welcme” hanging over the main entrance to the stadium. It wasn’t a welcoming sight for Sibeko.
“I don’t know what happened. It was 20 to 30 meters tall. This was a huge mistake. The A team of the World Cup was coming to inspect and what we had promised was not ready. We freaked out. I felt cold. We all expected this day. This was our do or die moment, we had worked for nearly four years and now we were going to mess it up because of a missing ‘o’.”
The crisis could have been costly. From this moment on, in the balance was a multimillion-dollar contract. Sibeko had to act fast.
“I called all the stadiums to check out if they had the same problem. It was difficult to find people quickly. At that point I was very anxious, I wanted to know whether we had made more mistakes along the way. I started to think about whether flags were facing the right way up when Sepp Blatter drives past. I froze, I didn’t know what to do. I am normally a very calm person, but on that day my staff said they had never seen me like that.”
The next step was to call a printer in Cape Town to make a new sign. It wasn’t easy as many World Cup service providers had lots of work, so it was easy for them to say no. Otherwise, Sibeko would have had to rope in a Johannesburg printer to get a new bulky banner flown down to Cape Town. For the first time in the day, lady luck smiled on Sibeko and a Cape Town printer agreed.
Then there was the problem of getting the huge banner up at the stadium before the inspectors arrived on the following day. It was already dark when the truck pulled up with the banner. So, by poor light, a team of 10 workers scaled ladders.
“They had problems because it was dark. They started at 8pm and
finished at midnight. We had another 10 people on the ground from my company and many of them were ready to walk because they were overstretched and felt they were not appreciated. Not everyone felt the importance of the biggest sporting event in the world. I said to them that I understood they were all under pressure. I talked about patriotism; this was their country, I told them, they had to keep going because they were doing this for their country. Maybe Mandela would have been proud of me!”
Crisis averted, thanks to elbow grease and a friendly Cape Town printer, but for Sibeko, his worst day put a damper on the greatest show on earth.
“That was the end of my torture, but then it became a difficult process because you had let down the client in the closing stages. When everyone was celebrating we were suffering. The opening I didn’t enjoy because I was wondering what else is going to go wrong. As much as the nation was celebrating, I was suffering, I was just wondering when it was all going to come to an end!”
Sibeko went to Brazil earlier this year to see how the country was preparing for the next World Cup.
“I just thought South Africans undervalue themselves. Brazil is so well marketed and yet it doesn’t deliver as much as South Africa does. I have to say we are too hard on ourselves. Stadiums are not going up at all and secondly, there was no sign of commitment from people, there was just a lot of talk. It will be interesting to see how fast they get up to speed.”
Mandla Sibeko offers his World Cup experience to the Brazilians. He hopes, by contrast to 2010, his experience will be as beautiful as the game itself. That would be welcme; sorry, welcome!

Welcme? To Err Is Human, To Leave Out An “O” Is A Disaster

<h3>Wangari Maathai</h3>
<div id="attachment_231" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-231" class="wp-image-231 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Wanjira-011-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Wangari Maathai in Karura Forest which her mother helped save from bulldozer</div>
<h3>Kenyan Environmental and  Political Activist</h3>
It was Professor Wangari Maathai’s personality, anyway, to linger on the dark side, checking under every rock, determined to know the worst that may happen, so as not to be taken by surprise. This was largely instinctual, developed from years of battling the powerful and the mighty who dared disrespect the environment.
About a year before Wangari Maathai’s death in September 25, 2011 she was diagnosed with an aggressive strain of ovarian cancer, immediately put on medication and chemotherapy with the hope this combination could at least prolong her life. Her daughter, Wanjira Mathai, remembers the professor as a strong woman; a selfless person who was incapable of abandoning her passion, even as the energies of the day were abandoning her.
Speaking to Mathai, it turns out that the woman who convinced thousands to plant trees; blocked forest destruction and inspired millions of African girls to think big, worked during her cancer-ravaged final year as if it were another day at the office.
Chemotherapy would knock Maathai into misery, slow her down, but not deter her. The ecological warrior had a grand dream for the Green Belt Movement (GBM), a body she formed three decades ago to plant trees and help village women make a somewhat decent living.
“She slowed down deliberately because she had to take care of herself. There was an element of taking things a lot easier; resting a lot more and that was important,” says Mathai of her mother, her boss and her colleague at the GBM, where she is the head of international affairs.
Mathai, a holder of two masters degrees in public health and business administration from Emory University, and a close confidant of her mother, knows why she looked fit. Except for doctors, family and a few close friends, few knew she had cancer. Many where suprised when her death was announced on a chilly Monday morning.
“She was gifted,” says Mathai, explaining why her mother looked younger than a 71-year-old. “She had good genes. She was very active—a lot of people may not know that she exercised a lot; she walked a lot and she was very healthy—six in the morning, she was in a gymnasium almost every day.”
As early as April, Wangari Maathai approved a five-year-action-plan for GBM. Despite the cancer, she was very active in its initial implementation, according to GBM employees, who have now vowed to elevate GBM to new heights.
“Our singular plan is to implement that plan. That is what she endorsed; that is what she wanted us to do; and it is really clear it is very strong and basically it can be done by those of us who are there,” says Mathai, the second of the Wangari’s three children.
Since her death, she says: “There is a sense of loss and there also is a sense of resolve. People feel like we have to make her proud. And that we must.”
President Mwai Kibaki announced the plans to launch the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies at the University of Nairobi in 2010.
Since the approval of the action plan, several co-workers said Maathai spent much time organizing meetings with various donor groups—her last international travel, Mathai says, was a trip they made to the French Development Agency conference in Paris.
“She was sick, but still she was fit enough to attend the conference,” Mathai explains in Karura Forest, a 1,400 hectare forest that her mother fought to protect from developers, who, with the government’s blessing, were about to take it.
“Her focus and her passion was the Green Belt Movement and the Wangari Maathai Institute. She spent a lot of time making sure that we had a complete strategic plan; we had a clear direction for the development of the institute. And as you know, in her wishes, she said she wanted the Wangari Maathai Institute to be her final resting place, so her ashes will be interred there when the institute is finished,” says the 40-year-old Mathai.
Millions across the world have come to respect Wangari Maathai and her boundless courage; through her daughter, I discovered a well of kindness and compassion; both for the environment and all those who inhabit it.
“Selflessness is such a rare thing. In leadership you need that; if you are going to make change you have to be selfless; it’s not about you,” ends Mathai.

“If you are going to make change you have to be selfless”

<h3>ALIKO DANGOTE</h3>
<div id="attachment_224" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-224" class="size-medium wp-image-224" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC_7510-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Aliko Dangote</div>
<h3>Founder and president of Dangote Group</h3>
As Africa’s richest man and business warrior, Aliko Dangote traverses the world leaving little time for interviews. He recently brought himself a $45 million Bombardier jet to save time. In May, Dangote was in China to sign a deal with Sinoma International Engineering Company. This deal means 10 new cement plants across the African continent, at an estimated cost of $3.9 billion, in just over three years’ time.
In this rare encounter, at the Transcor Hilton in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, he appeared relaxed, passionate about Africa, as well as pleased to be nominated as a Person of the Year by FORBES AFRICA.
“I feel great about it. I consider the recognition an honour and appreciation of what we are trying to do in the private sector. One thing people usually don’t understand is that what the Dangote Group is trying to achieve is something that our political leaders have failed to achieve in terms of reaching Africa economically. We are now in 14 African countries and wherever there’s an opportunity on the continent, we are very keen to explore it,” he says.
These are busy times for the Dangote Group, next year it plans to move into petrochemicals.
“It’s really a green area in Nigeria but we believe it’s an opportunity provided by the country’s endowment of gas,” he says.
“In our cement business, we are expanding massively on the continent, looking to raise our annual production capacity on the continent to about 60 million metric tons. Our target is to be number one in terms of profitability. In terms of agriculture, we have a sugar refinery where we process imported raw sugar, but we are looking at backward integration that will lead to the employment of 50,000 Nigerians. Going forward, from 2012 to 2015 we intend to invest $7 billion in Africa.”
It is the fruit of decades of risk taking that began with his cement plant back in Obajana, in Kogi State, 220km south west of where we are sitting. Dangote took the risk and invested in a five million tons plant – at a time when the entire Nigerian production was a mere 1.2 million tons.
“We saw the growth potential of the market and took the risk betting that the more we produce, the more the demand. I recall that my late friend and former CEO of Guarentee Trust Bank, Tayo Aderinokun, said that I was taking a big risk, but I believed that it will pay off. Today, Dangote Cement alone has a production capacity of 20 million tons and the rest of the market has eight million tons and we are starting another project to add a fresh 9 million tons in the next 60 days,” he says.
The impact of the Dangote Group has also been felt in the Lagos Stock Market. Last October, the group listed on an exchange erstwhile dominated by the banks. Dangote Cement is now one of the largest capitalized companies on the bourse, accounting for a quarter of the stock market.
Dangote believes passionately this is the time for Africa.
“I personally think there will be another recession because Europe will not be able to handle Greece and Italy at the same time. But Africa has the advantage of high growth rates on low debt. It’s the reverse in Europe. As a result, I think it’s only a matter of time for more investors to shift focus to Africa, which is more profitable. Money has no color and so investors will be attracted more to this continent because of its potential. If Lafarge of Blue Circle were more aggressive about investing in Africa in the past, Dangote would not have grown to this level because they could have blocked that opportunity with the cash and scale they have. Today, our Nigerian operation alone is a $14 billion business that we never dreamt would happen,” he says.
Dangote inspires many entrepreneurs in Africa, we ask whether there are many other investors like him in the continent.
“There are people that have cash but not heart and guts. They know the potential, but think of the headaches. But the truth is that nothing is easy in life. I think there can be even bigger companies than Dangote. It’s all about guts. Ten years ago, it was difficult to imagine our company achieving a valuation of $1 billion… I never in my wildest dreams at the beginning thought I would achieve 1% of what we’ve achieved. Nothing is impossible,” he says.
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If you want to be rich in Africa the time is now

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<h3>SANUSI LAMIDO SANUSI</h3>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-221" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FA-2011-Dec-Jan-OFC-229x300.jpg" alt="" width="229" height="300" />
<h3>Governor of the Central Bank  of Nigeria</h3>
In a country plagued by corruption, fraud and money laundering, no-one had expected such a radical, and by his own admission, “sudden” and “very risky” move. A mere two months into the job of Nigeria’s Central Bank Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi fired, in one fell swoop, five CEOs of the country’s leading banks for mismanagement and corruption.
In a place where those who end the careers of others get theirs abruptly ended too, Sanusi, as some of his critics retorted at the time, had gone too far; he had overplayed his hand. His answer: “Well they should tell me exactly where I should have stopped. People have stolen money and run banks to the ground. Was I supposed to leave them?”
Considering the fact that he knew some of the executives personally, and the initial five institutions that were affected by his action accounted for a big chunk of the country’s bank deposits—his move was to be a litmus test for the resilience of Nigeria’s financial services industry, to say nothing of his own character and principles. But when further investigations revealed that at least a third of the country’s banks were being toyed with, he was given more reason to put public interest before his and “stand for those who couldn’t stand for themselves”—even if that meant “taking difficult decisions that were painful” to him personally.
Sanusi would later tell pan-African television network, CNBC Africa, that although the three weeks he spent arduously contemplating the axing of the bank executives was “the most difficult part of my life”, he was “pleasantly surprised” at the amount of support he subsequently got from the people of Nigeria, across the board and including the country’s politicians, many of whom are known to be weak-willed and dependent on business people to bankroll their lives.
But if politicians and Bretton Woods thought that because they had supported Sanusi, he was in their pockets, they were so wrong. In Sanusi’s book, it soon became apparent, there are no permanent friends.
The legislators discovered this some months ago when Sanusi told a public gathering that 25.4% of the nation’s overhead cost was spent on Parliament, something many surmised as a veiled criticism of the way the country’s budget was allocated. Furious with him for “deliberately inciting” the populace, the lawmakers summoned him to Parliament and after a lot of tongue-lashing asked him to apologize.  Sanusi stuck to his guns. He told the politicians: “If I do not believe that I am wrong, I do not apologize.”
A month later Sanusi butted heads, again. This time with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a suggestion that Nigeria should devalue its currency. He slated them for advice that was “simply not based on sound economic logic”.
When the FORBES AFRICA team informed Sanusi that he had been short listed for the Person of the Year, we asked him whether, after having stepped on so many toes in such a short space of time, there was ever a time he considered, well… er…taking it easy?
“No, I never did,” he said pointedly, “on the contrary—I sometimes thought I didn’t step on enough toes. I think that part of my responsibility as a Nigerian is to ask what are the things wrong in our society and that need to be changed and what can I do in my position to change it.”
Change has indeed come to Africa’s most populous nation—thanks, in no small measure, to Sanusi among others.
“His quick and firm actions likely prevented a systemic banking crisis,” the IMF notes in its latest report on Nigeria.
“The core function of a central bank is to provide financial system stability, exchange rate stability, and price stability. Therefore, to have been able to provide stability in the last two years when the rest of the global economy has been in turmoil has been the principal achievement,” Sanusi says.
“Everything we’ve done in terms of the recapitalization of the banks, mergers and acquisitions, governance reforms etc are all aimed at financial stability. We’ve been able to do that while achieving stability in the exchange rate and keeping inflation relatively under control. Obviously, we’ve had volatility in interest rates and exchange rates because you can’t have price, exchange rate and interest rate control at the same time. But I think we’ve achieved our core mandate.”
Business confidence has surged and Africa’s third-largest economy is expected to grow above trend, with favorable medium-term prospects. A 7% real GDP growth is relatively high, even though it is below the double-digit levels the country requires if it is to become one of the world’s top 20 economies.
“It’s just an arithmetic fact that at current growth rates we’ll take over from South Africa in terms of share size. But this is a country of 167 million people and growing and 7% growth at the moment does not improve the welfare of the people of Nigeria and we need a higher rate of growth than we have at the moment,” Sanusi says: “The focus should not be on GDP, but GDP per capita, human development indicators and the quality of life of the population. Inclusive growth is the challenge.
Double-digit growth will be a function of the right policies, he says: “We already have 7% growth without power and infrastructure. Growth that has come largely from telecoms, wholesale and retail trade and the good fortune of rainfall for agriculture. It’s a no brainer that if we begin to move, for instance, agriculture production towards global averages we can probably double growth in that sector and build manufacturing by fixing power and infrastructure, moving from 7% to 12 or 13%.”
Born on July 31, 1961, of a public servant father who headed the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the 1960s, Sanusi has BSc and MSc degrees.
Between 1983 and 1985 he taught economics at his alma mater, Ahmadu Bello University, before joining the private sector.
He was the CEO of First Bank when, some day in late February 2009, he received a call from the then Nigerian President, Umaru Yar’Adua.
“We spent about 15 minutes chatting about family,” Sanusi recalls. But it wasn’t until May 8 of the same year that Sanusi got another call, this time the head of state informing him of his wish to make him the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. It came as a big shock to Sanusi, who had never met his president before and thought you had to lobby to get such jobs.
Little did he know that two years on, he would have behind him such accolades as World Central Bank Governor of the Year 2011, Sub-Saharan Central Bank Governor of The Year 2011, African Central Bank Governor of The Year 2010 and People’s Person of The Year 2010.
He is most likely to arrive at the Forbes Africa Person of the Year awards ceremony in Lagos wearing a bow tie, for he refuses to wear a conventional tie. A bow tie, he says, is “cute” and speaks to his “instinctive sense of being different”. What else would you expect from a banker who never runs with the herd.

“I sometimes thought I didn’t step on enough toes”

Speed in football is a key point in determining the outcome of games. A running back who can get to the corner and turn upfield faster than the defense can get there has a great an opportunity to make a big play. A receiver who can catch a ball in stride and turn on the speed can make a special touchdown. Building speed in football is a function of drills to build speed and the ability to rise to the moment so you can overpower and outrun the competition.
thing to do 1
Run football shuttle drills to build volatile speed and stamina in games. Start at target line and sprint to the 10 yard line and back. Then turn and sprint for that 20 and back, The 30 and lumbar, along with also the 40 and back. create a one minute break and repeat the set.
go 2
Run hills to build speed and forceful strength in your legs. Run 60 feet uphill to build <a href="http://www.authenticjerseyswholesale.us/">wholesale jerseys</a> 
 power and explosiveness and run 60 feet downhill to build a regular stride and balance. Perform five reps of hill running per day inside offseason to become and explosive runner on the field. This was the practice of Hall of Famers Jerry Rice and Walter Payton in their careers.
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 your legs by in the weight room. The stronger items your legs, Hips and core muscles the faster it&#8217;s possible to run. To build speed with weightlifting, Do routines like the leg press, Lunge and dead lift to make speed. Take a barbell on the back of shoulders to perform the lunge. Place your right foot about 18 inches opposite your left foot. Lunge forward so your left leg is straight and your right thigh is parallel down. Do this 10 times and then there peat the drill with your left foot next to your right.
Run team relays to build team speed and competition. residence two footballs at midfield. Line half your team up at one 25 yard line and the other half at the contrary 25. concerning coach&#8217;s whistle, The first player in each line will sprint to midfield and pick up the basketball. They will likely then sprint back and hand it to the second player waiting on line at the 25 yard line. That player will sprint to midfield for the ball, Lay it down at that spot and sprint time for the 25, And tag the hand of next player in line. The drill go on in that manner until all players have run. That team that tidies up the drill first with all runners going at full speed wins the exercise.

How to improve your performance in Football

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When he was young, Evander Holyfield’s dream was to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Considered too small for a heavyweight, some gave him no chance against the big guys of the time. So Holyfield went about it the correct way.
<div id="attachment_215" style="width: 778px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-215" class="size-full wp-image-215" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/RTR1J8AF.jpg" alt="" width="768" height="1003" />Evander Holyfield</div>
First, he unified the Cruiserweight division by defeating the likes of Dwight Muhammad Qawi (WBA), Carlos De Leon (WBC) and Ossie Ocasio (IBF). That was when only the WBA, WBC and IBF world belts mattered. Nowadays, of course, we are talking about the alphabet soup; IBF, WBC, WBA, WBO, IBO, IBC, WBU, WBF and goodness knows what other titles are yet to emerge. The result is that in this day and age, it is pointless and meaningless for boxers to even think about being called undisputed world champions.
Holyfield then went about chasing his dream right from his first fight—a six-round victory over unknown journeyman, Lionel Byarm, at Madison Square Garden, New York in November 1984. He proved his worth as a heavyweight and earned his right to fight for the world heavyweight championship by defeating James Tillis, Pinklon Thomas, Michael Dokes, Adilson Rodrigues, Alex Stewart and Seamus McDonagh. He could and should have then faced the undefeated, undisputed heavyweight king of the time, Mike Tyson.
The only problem was James Buster Douglas knocked out Tyson in the 10th round in Tokyo to claim his title.
So it was Douglas that Holyfield faced and knocked out in the third round at the Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in October 1990 to be crowned the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world.
So then, what is Evander Holyfield talking about when he says he is still boxing because his goal is to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world? He is telling anybody and everybody who will listen, including me, that he continues to fight at the ripe age of 48 because he hasn’t reached his goal of being called “undisputed” champion. He says for as long as it takes to become the undisputed champion, he will continue to box. I gave up continuing this line of questioning when I realized I was not going to get anywhere.
Moving quickly along, next question: Do people ask him a lot about the infamous ear biting courtesy of Mike Tyson? This happened in June 1997 at the MGM Grand Las Vegas when Tyson, facing certain back-to-back defeat at the hands of Holyfield, took the easy way out when he got himself disqualified by biting off a piece of Evander’s ear, not once but twice. Holyfield’s answer to this question was a terse NO; no one asks him anymore about that fateful night these days, he says. Holyfield had to be rushed to hospital that night for doctors to attach a piece of his ear. Holyfield does say, though, he has forgiven Tyson and the two last met and spoke a year ago at a function.
Holyfield says he has no connections with Africa but has ambitions of fighting on the continent before finally hanging up his gloves. He thinks given resources and time, African boxing could be great.
In his twilight years, Holyfield has travelled the globe, fighting in Moscow in 2007, Switzerland in 2008, and Denmark in 2011. All his other fights, 57 in total, happened in the USA.
Without revealing much, Holyfield says he has enough business outside boxing and like most people, has lost money in the past in bad investments. He earns a lot from speeches and celebrity appearances.
Holyfield says sometimes he feels like boxing takes too much of his business time. But he loves who he is and still enjoys boxing, and wouldn’t swap careers for anything.
Another pugilist who appears to have had no problem leaving the ring and going into business is George Foreman, the man who lost his title to Muhammad Ali in the famous “Rumble in the Jungle” in Kinshasa in 1974. Foreman has since made a fortune selling grills.
Holyfield says whereas he is happy for Foreman, he will still remain Evander Holyfield and does not wish to trade places with Big George. Holyfield beat Foreman on points in April 1999 when he defended his three titles.
All said and done, the man they call the Real Deal, despite fighting way past his sell-by date, will always have his place in boxing’s hall of fame. The only man to have won the biggest prize in boxing, the world heavyweight championship an unprecedented four times, he remains humble and professional. He never enters the ring less than 100% fit and always gives more than 100%.
For one so fit, incredibly, Holyfield was struck down by a heart attack in his mid-30s. He was told by the doctors he would never fight again.
Miraculously, his heart healed completely and he has boxed on, undeterred, for more than a decade.
Fighting spirit has driven Holyfield on. He hopes that big money deal to fight in Africa will come one day, but even for the tenacious Real Deal, time is surely running out.

The Real Deal — I Will Box In Africa  Before The Final Bell

<div id="attachment_210" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-210" class="size-large wp-image-210" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/nicola-kzn-amateur-June-3-2011-054-1024x684.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="317" />Nicola Eaton</div>
She would rather be playing on the American Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour, or Ladies European Tour, or even a South African women’s golf tour—instead she’s selling houses.
Twenty-six-year-old Nicola Eaton is one of many professional golfers lamenting the fact that there is no women’s tour in South Africa.
“For so long women’s golf has taken a back seat and had very little support or sponsorship,” says Eaton.
By contrast, the South African men’s game is thriving; South Africans won two of the last six major titles; the Sunshine Tour was chosen for the World Golf Championship in 2012.
South Africa’s men’s Sunshine Tour is a vital stepping stone to the bigger tours and it includes three co-sanctioned events annually, with the European Tour providing non-European exemptions, giving local players the chance to play abroad.
On the other side of the coin, aspiring female professionals have to pay their way to America or Europe in an attempt to earn playing cards on those tours. The competition abroad is fierce and women who do not make the grade are forced to return home with little or nothing.
For Eaton and her twin sister, Melissa, this is the dead end to a rocky road that promised so much. They were members of the Ernie Els Foundation. After completing high school, they were awarded golfing scholarships in 2003 at the Louisiana State University in the United States and graduated four years later.
<div id="attachment_212" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-212" class="size-large wp-image-212" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/nicola-kzn-amateur-June-3-2011-052-1024x684.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="317" />Eaton plans to enter the Ladies European Tour</div>
After playing on the American Futures Tour—the secondary tour to the US LPGA tour— for two seasons, Eaton, lacking sponsorship, was forced to return to South Africa. Melissa was more fortunate; she found a sponsor and remained on the tour.
“After two years of struggling financially on the LPGA Futures Tour supporting myself, I decided I had no choice but to move back to SA and try to find sponsors,” Eaton explains.
Since returning, Eaton has had to supplement her income by giving golf lessons and selling houses as an estate agent.
Unfortunately, money in South African women’s golf is short, according to Rae Hast, the Women’s Professional Golf Association (WPGA) president.
“We used to have four tournaments in 2009, but we’ve struggled with the economy and to find sponsors for future events.”
The Women’s World Cup of golf had previously been hosted in South Africa from 2005 to 2008, with the winners taking home $1.4 million in 2008. The hosting of the tournament did nothing to help grow the game in South Africa and the women’s tour was still forced to find its own financial backing, which never came.
“We are looking to secure one co-sanctioned event, and once we have that it becomes much easier to approach people for support,” adds Hast.
But for now, players like Eaton have very few options. She plans to enter the Ladies European Tour Qualifying School for 2012 and will need to raise R70,000 ($9400). With the November deadline looming, she has raised only R2,000 ($270).
“I know I speak predominantly for myself, but I also speak for my fellow girls on tour.
“I have so much talent and I know that if we got a little more support, we could change women’s golf in SA and represent our country on the LPGA Tour.”

Money For Nothing And Frustration For Free

When Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi was looking to start a new business quickly,  East Africa beckoned.
He identified Kenya and Ethiopia for cultivating and exporting roses, bought 311,000 hectares of land, employed 10,000 people and today his company, Karuturi Global Ltd, produces around 555 million stems a year and is widely recognized as the pioneer of cut flower production. Almost its entire produce is exported to high-end markets in Europe, where it has 9% of the market, as well as to North America and Asia.
<div id="attachment_205" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-205" class="size-large wp-image-205" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/94833459-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />A woman carries a bucket of roses at Roshanara Roses flower farm in Debre Zeit, Oromia, Ethiopia</div>
“Six years ago I was very dissatisfied with India,” he told FORBES AFRICA from Dar es Salaam, where he was looking for new business.
“Business in India is fragmented and land is expensive. It’s easier to look abroad instead of starting a business from scratch here.”
Several market studies later, Karuturi chose Kenya and Ethiopia as the most cost-competitive countries in which to grow flowers—and it paid off. For six straight years, the company has grown exponentially by 20% a year.
“Ethiopia has a good workforce. Two million people are unemployed and 25% of the population is under the age of 25, which means that there’s a huge supply of labor. Kenya, by comparison, has a smaller population. The cost of labor is less competitive, but it has other advantages like cheaper logistics and better infrastructure.”
Karuturi Global’s other core interest is food processing which, while still being executed in India, has grown fast in Africa.
“It’s an interesting fact that Africa is one of the biggest importers of food in the world. It’s clever to be growing food in Africa because there is a high demand for it. Food is really expensive on the continent. Lands are fertile, which coupled with the huge labor force, make it an ideal destination for agriculture and food production.”
Karuturi advises, though, that one does one’s homework. “You need to be patient. It’s better to take the time to understand the local legislation, as this is where companies fall down by disregarding the law, processes and culture of African countries. Too many people in the business world try to show Africa as a place where it’s difficult to do business and make investments. But it actually provides an ideal opportunity and the returns are very good.”
Bill Levine, managing director of Ecoterra Technologies (ETT), agrees but warns that without a local partner who knows the culture and has contacts with people at the top, it’s difficult to go far.
“We stalled at the beginning because we weren’t talking to the right people. There’s a lot of competition at a local level between governmental agencies, NGOs and investors from the country’s diaspora.
“Ethiopia is far from the usual portrait we see in the media; it’s a country full of opportunities. It has 11% GDP and a large proportion of the population is making money, especially in the cities. They have high mountains, perfect for producing wind energy, a lot of water for hydroelectricity and cows and goats for dairy and meat production. Most of the investors, local and foreign, are interested in bio-fuel energy production and/or infrastructure development like low-cost, eco-smart roads. Compared to countries like America, where the energy sector is already under the control of oil companies and other forms of non-sustainable energies, here you can make a profit.”
But he agrees it takes patience.
“There is no quick fix. You have to build a lot of infrastructure. We just finished building our first road and it went really well. At the moment most investors are locals, which means that the country is ripe for foreign investment—there are many areas without roads and power and where there is no competition.
“I have a sense of urgency that if we don’t turn Africa around, it will be exploited wrongly and all the great potential that comes from the environment and the people will be destroyed. We are looking for investors right now, trying to get them involved, especially in hydro electricity.”
And time is running out for investors to become involved.
The next 10 years are ideal for foreign investment, according to Eliezer Gil Yasu, one of many Ethiopians living abroad.
“Now is the time to invest in Ethiopia. Now you can make business there without needing so much money. But a decade from now, Ethiopia will be like everywhere else and you’ll need lots of money to make any real profit,” he says.
Based in Israel, Yasu is one of the 100,000 Ethiopians who left their country over the past 30 years. He heads the Ethiopian desk of Doron Tikotzky and Co. legal firm while also running a business that exports ceramics from Turkey to Ethiopia.
“There’s a joke where two people arrive in Ethiopia and see that no one has shoes. The one says, ‘No shoes! There’s no opportunity here,’ while the other says, ‘No shoes! There’s great potential here!’ It’s up to you how you see the market.
“If you want to invest in a rich country because people there have money, don’t go to Ethiopia. But if you understand that a place that has nothing is full of opportunities, then this is the country for you.”
Yasu mostly assists clients by putting them in contact with the right people and ministries: “Ethiopian bureaucracy is a nightmare and can take six months to master,” he chuckles.
On the plus side, the government encourages investment by giving incentives such as loans, exemptions from tax for several years, and even providing water if it is needed.
“Politically, the country is stable and security is very good. Ethiopia has developed quickly in the last 10 years. There are a lot of natural resources—gold, iron, gas, aluminum—which bring many opportunities for construction, while the workforce is very cheap and people are motivated to work.”
But Yasu admits there are risks.
“I had a client who wanted to grow hummus seeds and the government gave him a place very close to Sudan. For one year he cultivated the land until the Sudanese government ordered him to leave, saying it was their property.
The Ethiopian government apologized, compensated him and explained they thought it was theirs, but he’d lost money and time.”
Which is why Gideon Peri, a consultant for several daughter companies of one of the largest public companies in Ethiopia, the Endowment Fund For the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT), warns that while the country is an attractive investment destination, potential investors need to prepare in advance a detailed study on the area in which they wish to invest and always use the services of a local lawyer and partner.
“The difficulties in Ethiopia are the frequent stoppage and failure of power supplies, even in the capital; the frequent failure of communication systems; limitations on imports; government control and regulations; and tough foreign currency control. But the government is well aware of the need for development and appreciates foreign investment as an effective means of bringing in money and knowledge. So the opportunities are there.”

Out Of The Dust  Grow The Roses  Of Success

WHEN MEDIA MOGUL  Oprah Winfrey bid farewell to 25 years of The Oprah Winfrey Show in May, she left viewers with a cliff-hanger. “I won’t say good-bye,” Winfrey said on her final show. “Until we meet again.”
<div id="attachment_197" style="width: 823px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-197" class="size-full wp-image-197" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO101011_191.jpg" alt="" width="813" height="621" />In 1976, at 22, Oprah became coanchor of Baltimore&#8217;s WJZTV</div>
But the promise of that glorified gathering place on her glittering new cable network, OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network, has fallen short of expectations. OWN’s 24-hour-a-day programming launched on Jan. 1 in 80 million homes as a partnership between Winfrey’s Harpo production company and cable programming powerhouse Discovery Communications. The goal was to remake a forgotten, high-numbered cable channel into Oprah-branded gold. Ratings quickly tanked. Chief Executive Christina Norman was shown the door in May. Winfrey became the chair, CEO and chief creative officer in July. Now the pressure is on Oprah to save TV’s feel-good network.
Winfrey admitted to fans on Facebook that OWN hadn’t found its flow because she and her staff had been too focused on ending the syndicated Oprah TV show. (Winfrey declined an interview with FORBES.) Critics argue that the issues run deeper. Since OWN’s launch in January its average prime-time audience dropped 37% to 250,000 viewers in July, according to Nielsen. An average of 109,000 viewers tuned in on an all-day basis that month—just one-third of the viewership expected by advertisers.
<div id="attachment_199" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-199" class="size-full wp-image-199" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO101011_193.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" />Founded Harpo in 1986</div>
Robert Thompson, the founding director of the Bleier Center for Television &amp; Popular Culture at Syracuse University, believes OWN launched too early, without enough programming. The shows it does have are weak, he says. Adding to the troubles: OWN is difficult to find on the channel guide. “Some people thought anything Oprah introduced would be a hit. She could introduce the chicken pox, and people would want to get it,” says Thompson. “We now know Oprah’s name isn’t enough.”
Discovery Communications Chief Executive David Zaslav, who approached Winfrey with the idea for an Oprah-inspired network in 2007 and subsequently okayed pumping nearly $200 million into it, says he isn’t worried by the lower-than-expected ratings. “It’s going to take time,” Zaslav insists. “There is no cable channel that launches from nowhere to immediate success.”
Zaslav has pushed for more involvement from Oprah. He persuaded Winfrey to double her on-air time in 2009, before the launch. With Winfrey in charge, “Oprah’s now at the center of OWN,” Zaslav beams. “This is the moment we’ve been waiting for.”
Winfrey may be one of the media industry’s best brand managers, but can she rise to the role of a programming executive? On Aug. 1, after spending her first full week focused on the channel, she told fans that while she wasn’t “frazzled” by OWN’s performance, managing it turned out to be one of her biggest challenges. “It’s ten times harder than doing my daily show,” she said in a Facebook note. “Doing that show felt like breathing every day. Now I’m in so many meetings I sometimes have to step out and catch a breath.”
<div id="attachment_200" style="width: 685px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-200" class="size-full wp-image-200" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO101011_189.jpg" alt="" width="675" height="805" />Started monthly O magazine in 2000. Has over 2 million subscribers</div>
Part of Winfrey’s new strategy is integrating OWN’s staff in L.A. with Harpo’s staff in Chicago. “One team, one heart,” goes the mantra. Harpo presidents Sheri Salata and Erik Logan were tapped as OWN presidents in July and will lead both teams. Instead of chasing ratings, Salata and Logan plan to focus their attention on brand-consistent programming and hope better ratings will follow. “We feel very bullish that we will deliver on the commitments that we have in the marketplace,” says Logan.
Zaslav, too, maintains that advertisers— OWN launched with about ten blue-chip ad clients that had signed multiyear deals—have been incredibly supportive. Of them, Target, Kellogg’s and Procter &amp; Gamble declined to comment. A General Motors representative says GM remains committed to OWN.
Some close OWN watchers warn that advertisers’ support has just about reached its limit. Derek Baine, a senior analyst at media research firm SNL Kagan, says OWN’s ratings have sometimes been lower than the ratings for the Discovery Health channel, which preceded OWN on the same channel number. “If we get to the end of the year and ratings are still terrible, then it’s a big problem. Advertisers will pull back on their commitments.”
That means Winfrey has to work fast to ensure OWN’s new programming— scheduled to launch Oct. 10— catches on. After all, even with her $2.7 billion net worth Oprah can’t subsidize a cable network indefinitely. OWN executives are placing most of their hopes on a daily talk show, The Rosie Show, hosted by comedienne Rosie O’Donnell, and a rehash of the Oprah show, called Oprah’s Lifeclass. The latter will use select clips from the 4,561 Oprah episodes, along with new footage of Winfrey sharing personal revelations and life lessons. “At my core I’m a teacher, masquerading as a talk show host. And now I’ll have a nightly class on OWN,” Winfrey said on Facebook.
<div id="attachment_201" style="width: 442px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-201" class="size-full wp-image-201" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/FO101011_190.jpg" alt="" width="432" height="288" />Republican presidential candidate Texas Gov. George W. Bush chats with talk show host Oprah Winfrey Tuesday Sept. 19, 2000 after appearing on the program in Chicago. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee)</div>
In January a second show hosted by Winfrey, Oprah’s Next Chapter, will follow her around the world as she interviews high-profile subjects. “All it takes is a couple of big hits,” says Syracuse University’s Thompson. “The really important question is, can Oprah still do a hit show?”
It’s a bet that Winfrey, with Zaslav’s backing, is willing to make. With the cable property valued as high as $1 billion, it’s no small risk. “We’re making a lot of progress,” says Zaslav. “Watch out for us over the next two to three years. We’re going to make a big splash, and we’re going to have a big impact.”
&nbsp;

Author: Forbes Africa

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA