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;

Oprah Winfrey’s OWN Battle

According to the landlords, contemporaries, teachers and neighbors who have lined up in front of the media in recent weeks, Kweku Adoboli was a sociable, intelligent and overwhelmingly ‘nice guy’.
The financial community in London remains awash with speculation about how that nice guy from the industrial coastal town of Tema, in Ghana, came to be in a position to lose the Swiss bank, UBS, more than $2 billion as well as its CEO.
Adoboli’s background speaks of privilege, but is unremarkable amongst his peers in the City. The 31-year-old son of a UN staffer was schooled at the fee-paying, Quaker-run Ackworth School in West Yorkshire, where he was deputy head boy.
<div id="attachment_193" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-193" class="size-large wp-image-193" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/125271682-692x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="701" />UBS Trader in court</div>
He studied computer science and business at the University of Nottingham before joining UBS, where he worked until 3:30 in the morning on September 15, when the City of London police arrested him at the offices of UBS in Finsbury Avenue. Later that morning, UBS announced that it had made a loss of $2 billion due to “unauthorised trading”. It later revised the figure upwards to $2.3 billion.
Adoboli remains in custody in London on two charges of fraud—for the periods October 2008 to December 2010, and from January to September 2011; plus two charges of false accounting—from October 2008 to December 2009, and January 2010 to September 2011.
Facing charges, Adoboli told a court that he was “sorry beyond words” and called his vast trading losses “disastrous miscalculations”.
Those miscalculations have called into question the survival of investment banking at UBS, as the bank decides whether to cut off a division battered by poor performance and scandal. Oswald Gruebel, the bank’s CEO, resigned over the affair on September 25.
As Adoboli’s LinkedIn profile shows, he worked on the investment bank’s European equity desk in London, trading “Delta One” strategies.
“Delta One” refers to the ‘delta’—or marginal difference—between closely correlated asset classes. By buying equities and hedging using derivative products or baskets of other assets, these computer-driven strategies mop up money through the inefficiencies in the market. It is highly complex, but is also supposed to work within tightly controlled risk limits. For every position the trader takes, he or she is expected to take a counter position—or hedge—of almost equal size.
The Swiss and British authorities are now investigating how Adoboli was able to evade the systems that monitor these limits to place directional bets. The results of those probes are likely to be months away, but the investigators will no doubt have seized on Adoboli’s CV and its startling similarity to that of the last headline-grabbing rogue, the French trader, Jerome Kerviel. Kerviel cost Société Générale, the French bank, $6.6 billion in 2008.
Starting in the bank’s “middle office”—the risk management IT department—in 2000, Kerviel made the jump up to trading in 2005, also on a Delta One desk. The bank’s comprehensive “Mission Green” report into the incident charts his activity from that point. He began to take directional bets that same year, probably to cover up the fact that he had been consistently losing using conventional strategies, the report said.
Kerviel used his knowledge of the bank’s risk systems to hide the fact that his positions were not hedged, creating fictitious counter trades by buying securities with deferred start dates or with counterparties that did not require immediate confirmation. Using passwords from other SocGen employees, he was able to go back into the system and remove the trades, fooling the risk monitoring tools. It worked for more than two years and reaped a fortune.
In January 2008, though, Kerviel was found out. He had amassed directional positions in European stock indices totalling almost €50 billion ($6.6 billion). The day that the bank began to unwind these positions was “Black Monday”, January 21, when UK, European and Asian markets fell dramatically.
That he was found out in a period of acute market stress is not a coincidence. The hedge fund, Long Term Capital Management, collapsed after the Russian sovereign debt crisis in 1998. The world’s most famous rogue, Nick Leeson, whose limit-busting trades out of Asia brought down Barings Bank, was shaken out in the aftermath of the 1995 Kobe Earthquake. Both events saw highly volatile markets with large price movements.
Like Kerviel at SocGen, Adoboli began his career at UBS in the bank’s IT department, maintaining and managing those same risk systems that were supposed to keep traders in check. Whether he used that knowledge will likely be a thrust of the investigation against him.
While systems and practices differ between banks, traders often admit that limits really are flexible. There are often subtle ways for traders, with good reputations, to go around the risk management practices that, while they reduce the potential for losses, also constrain a trader’s ability to take educated punts when they have a strong conviction.
This, cynical traders say, is why rogues can get away with deceit for long periods: no-one gets fired for winning. It is only when they lose that they have to “go write the book”—that is, be escorted out of the building by security at best, or the police.
Kerviel was, according to SocGen, at it for years. Leeson began his rogue activity in 1992, initially winning big before his fortunes turned and he began to hide his losses in the now infamous account number 88888. Adoboli’s charges—for which he has not entered a plea—cover almost four years.
Traders are understandably reluctant to go on the record about their peers who ‘go rogue’, but as more than one hinted, if you are considered good enough, hard boundaries get softer. If you break the rules and lose, though, you are on your own.

From Ghana, To London, To A Cell – Africa’s Rogue Trader

Portmanteau–a blend of two or more, and that is exactly what Pinotage is. Not a hybrid like many of us in the industry thought, for a hybrid is a blend of two species (vitis species). Pinotage is Pinor Noir put together with Hermitage, also known as Cinsaut.
Therefore, Pino + Hermitage = Pinotage (vitis vinifera). Easy enough.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-189" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/KIETH_014-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />
Pinotage was invented by one Prof Izak Perold in 1925 in South Africa. As many great stories go, it was a creation born of blind chance. Perold tested the new grape and left it to grow in his test garden. One day his garden was uprooted, but the grape was saved and became the father and mother of the Pinotage that’s grown and vinified on many wine farms in South Africa’s Western Cape. People drink Pinotage on all continents.
Pinotage is produced in many styles, unwooded so it shows a juicy, easy drinking quality, or from older vines, which are then matured in oak to make a serious wine. The wine has not always enjoyed much favor, especially among foreign wine critics, who found it flabby–one even commented that it tasted like rusty nails. I tend to agree when I find Pinotage being made in a heavy, over-extracted style. Pinor Noir is a very delicate and difficult grape to work with, bearing in mind that Pinotage is a blend of Pinor Noir and Hermitage. Wine makers, for a long time, would merely bash the grape in new oak and pray for a lovely balanced wine.
The Pinotage producers began paying attention to the critics and wine drinkers and adjusted their wine-making skills. South African Sebastian Beaumont, in Botriver, makes his Pinotage in big open cement tanks and says that this method allows the wine to breathe, making for a smooth and richly textured wine.
Mocha Choca is  also another big craze in Pinotage making. Wooden staves are put into the wine while it’s maturing and the end result is wine that tastes like chocolate, mocha and coffee .
Pinotage is not limited to table wines. It can also be used for sparkling and dessert wine. The first house to produce sparkling wines in South Africa, Simonsig, has made lovely Pinotage-based bubbly, as have Moreson and Beyerskloof, to name but a few.
Now for my favorite part: Pinotage  and food. Pinotage has mostly strong hints of banana and meaty notes, and of course, chocolate. It is a wine that is very flexible and can be enjoyed by a multitude of tastebuds, depending on the style. The foods that go well with Pinotage are spicy and salty, so many light curries will work well, as will grilled fish (snoek) with a spicy sauce and salt.
This month, I have chosen a favorite home-grown dish to pair with Pinotage–bobotie.
Bobotie is a meat based dish with lots of spices like masala, turmeric and cumin. There are also cloves and pepper, and I would add a little chilli for some fire in the final taste. The dish is baked in the oven after all the ingredients have been mixed with white bread as the crust. The texture and flavor of the dish is savory, so the choice of Pinotage should be the same. A medium-bodied, matured wine from regions like Paarl and Stellenbosch should work well here. Spicy African meaty dishes will also pair nicely.
Recently, I attended the Soweto Wine Festival, a wine industry initiative aimed at introducing black people in the township to the many joys of wine appreciation. In a large hall in Soweto, people can taste South African wines in all their glory.
I went along to see if I could find any interesting Pinotages and found M Hudi (Harvester), from a farm owned by the Rangaka family-one of South Africa’s few black-owned wine farms. I was very impressed as the whole family was at the stand displaying and explaining their wines to the enthusiastic crowd. One chap who was with me at the stand said that he did not like Pinotage much, but was loving what was on offer from the Rangakas. I explained to him that wine growers have improved their techniques and what is available out there is really good stuff. Viva freedom of choice!
I was converted many years ago, as I was still learning about viticulture. It was thanks largely to Pinotage producer Beyers Trutter: he had made a Pinotage for the Cape Wine Makers Guild that I can still taste–it had a distinct nose of ox blood and a savory mouth that just sat there giving me endless joy.
Now to recap: Pinotage is a proudly South African grape that is used to make red wines of note and is prevalent mainly in landlocked wine regions like Stellenbosch and Paarl.
I watched a South African movie the other day: Paradise Stop, with Kenneth Nkosi. In the film there is a tender scene where two lovers are sharing a Pinotage made by my main man Beyers Trutter–the Diesel Pinotage from Beyerskloof.
If Pinotage be the food of love, pour on.

Viva Pinotage!

<h3>When did you realize that you wanted to be music artists?</h3>
Peter: When we were young our music was about dancing, singing and imitating people. We left music to focus on other things such as football and went back by chance when our mother, who is a pastor, invited us to play in the church band. Later, we won a music competition. From this experience we realized that we could take our music to the next level. We formed P’Square and the rest is history.
<h3>How did you go about living your dreams and starting your careers?</h3>
Peter: There was a time when our music was not appealing to the audience. Our dad stopped paying our school fees. We kept doing music and we found ourselves paying the fees. This built us up to stand on our own. Though we were making money, we needed to find a way to save because the music industry is tough. We didn’t want to fail like many other musicians before us. We left Jos to make a name for us in the industry. We were on our own in Lagos with little support and that is why we needed to be careful about how we spent money. Success for us was because of our perseverance and being the best in what we do.
<h3>What was the worst business decision you have taken and how did you overcome it?</h3>
Paul: Four years ago, we did a concert in which we invited an international artist. However, the artist did not show up. We wanted to carry on with the show but we were concerned about the negative impression this could create. At this point crowds were coming through the gates. We did not know how to explain this problem to our audience. We came on stage and performed three songs and immediately announced that everybody with the tag should go to the bank where they bought it and collect their money back. We did that to protect our name because it is more important than the money. With a name you can still make money. But when you lose that name money won’t come. We turned a negative business decision into a positive one.
<div id="attachment_186" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-186" class="size-large wp-image-186" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_4422-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="711" />Paul and Peter Okoye, the duo that is P&#8217;Square</div>
<h3>What were the key challenges when you started your music career?</h3>
Paul: Back then, the money for studio recording was a challenge. I remember when we did our first song—we asked for help from our mother, who paid for the release of our song. She was so impressed with our work that she paid for the release of another song. Unlike other parts of the world where there are avenues to showcase talent, in Africa there are very few places where record labels can spot talent. As an artist you have to put yourselves out there and hope that somebody will recognize and sign you. For us it never came. We decided to do it on our own. Today we are signing artists.
<h3>Has piracy affected your music?</h3>
Paul: It is affecting us but we are not complaining because we sell in large volumes—our latest album sold a million copies five days after release. As a record label we are affected because new artists cannot control distribution. Distributors pay our royalties upfront because in Nigeria there is no monitoring system. Piracy does not end with hard copies though—downloads on social media could be an advantage as well as a disadvantage. On the one hand they help us to gauge the popularity of our music but on the other this is used to pirate our music. We try as much as possible reduce the piracy risk.
<h3>What does it take to be a successful musician in Nigeria and Africa?</h3>
Peter: You have to be business-oriented. As a music artist you need to understand that music is not for life. It might be for life for the likes of Michael Jackson. If you are making money now you need to manage your revenue life in a way that you can survive without music in the future. For us, outside the music industry we are into the real estate business. We don’t buy to sell; we keep most of our property investments.
<h3>Pirates suck blood from gangster turned gospel singer</h3>
<h3>How did a gangster end up making a living as a gospel singer?</h3>
Now Kenya’s Owen Mwatia trying to stop hustlers and pirates from ruining his dream. When the fifth member of his gang was shot dead on the streets of Nairobi, Owen Mwatia—known on stage as Daddy Owen—decided enough was enough. In 2003, he put down the gun and picked up the Bible.
More than eight years on, Mwatia is an award winning gospel singer and one of East Africa’s best musicians. He scooped the Best East African Artiste Award at the 2011 African Gospel Music Awards in London. In 2010, Mwatia was the first gospel musician to win an MTV Africa Music Award.
Life in a gang was tough enough, now his newfound career is being mugged by piracy, poor distribution and new technology.
“The reason why piracy is widespread is because of poor distribution channels. The distributors in Kenya are not doing their work. If you want any type of music, it is readily available through the pirates than the distribution companies. Out of 10 people listening to your music only one has bought your album, or even zero because all 10 just copied from their friends.”
Inefficient management of intellectual property rights, piracy and one-sided contracts have left many East African artists struggling to earn a living. Contracts in Kenya are not dictated by artists. A telecommunication company takes up to 80% while the artist gets 20%.Mwatia is trying to fight back.
“I am doing a digital launch whereby it will be coming from Daddy Owen straight to your phone, your computer or any storage appliance. In between there’s no middle man there’s no distribution company, and it is easy for me to get my money directly from it [digital launch].”
A digital launch is a once-off, where an artist has to cash in because after the launch, music becomes available and can be transferred from one device to another.
Kenya is Africa’s gospel capital and you’ll even find it being played in night clubs. Gospel songs top the charts and play across all television and radio station. Gospel music events in Tanzania and Uganda are dominated by Kenyan artists.
&nbsp;

Two Heads Are Better Than One

Record breaking albums; sold out concerts; endorsement deals worth millions and screaming fans. This is the stuff dreams are made of, but in this day and age Africans are finding it elusive.
<div id="attachment_183" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-183" class="size-large wp-image-183" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/39_Asa-680x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="714" />Asa at Arts Alive, Johannesburg</div>
Many young hopefuls fall for the allure of the music industry. They want to be the next Lady Gaga, 30 Seconds To Mars or Lil Wayne. Unfortunately, very few will make it and even those who do will find the cold reality that Africa’s mighty music market, South Africa, is not as lucrative as its American counterpart.
The reason? It is a small market, plagued by lagging technology and mismanagement.
The global economic downturn has hit industry sales. According to the Recording Industry of South Africa (RiSA), sales dropped by 6.9% between 2009 and 2010 and 14.7% between 2008 and 2010.
An artist who appears to have bucked this trend is newcomer, Zahara, a guitarist and vocalist from a small town near East London in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. She made news when it was reported that her debut album, Loliwe, sold more than 100,000 copies in just 19 days.
With the market where it is, the sceptics scoffed and there were whispers of cooked numbers. Zahara is managed by TS Records and distribution is handled by EMI Music.
Tyson Mqomo, a manager at EMI, refutes these allegations.
“We were also taken by surprise, but this has happened before, we did not make this up,” he says.
No matter how many Zahara sells, album sales alone will not sustain a music career or pay for lavish lifestyles, according to Clive Hardwick of Bula Music.
Hardwick has simplified the maths. If you have a compact disc (CD) that retails for $10, the retailer keeps 35% and pays the remaining 65% to the distributor. This wholesale price of $6.50 is divided up even further. Six per cent is for the manufacturing, 10-20% is kept by the distributor, and an artist could earn anywhere around 15%, depending on their contract. Five per cent pays for the producer and 6.76% is allocated for copyright. In the end the record label receives anywhere between 25% and 30%.
The average recording cost is $7, 269 and making a music video, marketing and CD sleeves pushes up expenses further.
There are currently around 1,500 record companies registered with RiSA, these include the big boys; Sony Music, Universal Music, EMI and Gallo Records. An estimated 50% of South African music releases come from these major recording companies. Across all recording mediums, 2010 sales in South Africa reached $43,770,901 for homegrown music; against $51,178,161 for international music.
The numbers don’t lie. It’s clear that there isn’t enough money going around. However, there are alternative sources of income. It just takes selling power, but unfortunately that does not come with star power.
John Langford, CEO of Big Concerts, says live performances are “the bread and butter”. FORBES AFRICA investigated how much. A certain hip-hop group asks anywhere between $3,632 and $9,685 for South African performances and $15,000 internationally. A South African male RnB singer earns $4,843 per performance and a songstress recently charged $11,637 for performing at an awards show.
To make matters worse, a good recording artist does not necessarily make a bankable performer. If you thought that local artists rake it in as supporting acts for visiting big shots, think again. The worldwide industry norm is that the locals sing for free, or even pay promoters for the privilege. This is known as “tour support” in Europe and it is the price you pay for a link with a big name.
Endorsements, sponsorships and merchandising can help boost profiles and bank accounts, only if managers are busy and sell their artists. Look at Lira, The Parlotones and HHP in South Africa.
Unimaginative management is not the only problem hampering the growth of the industry. Digitally, Africa is behind the rest of the world. Most people do not have broadband and South Africa is yet to establish an iTunes equivalent. The continent’s studios are also technically not on par with the international ones, which is one reason one why African artists fly to the States and Europe to record an album. The recording fees fly with them.
Everyone in the industry that FORBES AFRICA spoke to feels that government has failed them in ensuring effective laws to fight piracy.
From Johannesburg to Lagos you will see them at the traffic lights. Ten dollars can get you 10 CDs on the street before they even hit the shelves. Every now and again the police will round up the traffic light buccaneers and confiscate the copies—in the time it takes to memorize a Chris Brown song, the guys are back selling on the streets.
The South African Copyright Act of 1978 states that; “You may not make a copy of a sound recording without the permission of the author.” The onus is on the author to prove that such permission was never given and that is the problem for artists.
FORBES AFRICA has contacted South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry for comment, several times, but so far has had no response.
There is so much talent among African artists, surely a celebration of home grown music would help add scarce money to the pot. Hardwick says there are boundless opportunities for African musicians to collaborate and conquer continental markets.
“Africa has a very unique sound. What Africa needs is a focal point for the African music industry,” he says.
For now, there are two lessons to be learnt. First, do not get into the music industry for the money. Second, an artist worth a buck needs a big hit and a hardworking team around them. If it were that simple everyone would be making money.

$43 Million And They Still Can’t Make Money!

Chartered accountant and chief financial officer of the JSE, Freda Evans prefers the label Harley Rider to Biker Chick. And she blames JSE CEO Russell Loubser—a fellow bike enthusiast—for getting her back in the saddle after decades of biking abstinence.
<div id="attachment_178" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-178" class="size-large wp-image-178" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CTX4223-678x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="716" />Freda Evans</div>
Evans started off with a 50cc Suzuki as a teenager, but stopped riding when her brother was seriously injured in a biking accident. A few years ago, Loubser coaxed her onto his bright yellow BMW 1200 GS. “I’m now a Harley fanatic and find any excuse to ride. In my early fifties, this may be a rebellious mid-life crisis, but I’m totally hooked.”
After sitting her motorcycle learner’s license with kids more than half her age, Evans then splashed out on a blue Softtail Heritage Classic, accessorised with leather and studs. “The Harley is not known for its off-road driving or fast performance. The top end of my bike on a flat road is reputed to be 160km/hour, and that’s not exactly inspiring. What does grab me is the passion of the Harley riders, their unique style, and of course, that sound.”
Over the weekends, Evans joins up with the Free Chapter Club for breakfast rides, usually dusting up the roads of Roodepoort and the Magaliesburg. Members are diverse, and include the extremely wealthy who can afford top-of-the-range machines, as well as those paying off their wheels in instalments. “It’s all about the devotion and the bikes,” says Evans. “It’s not a case of ‘what do you do for a living?’ There are self-made business owners, security guards, and even a few other chartered accountants.”
A Harley Davidson executive is quoted as saying that the company doesn’t just sell motorcycles. “What we sell is the ability for a 43-year-old accountant to dress in black leather, ride through small towns and have people be afraid of him.” Evans puts herself in this target market and in South Africa this includes a strong female presence of women Harley owners.
She knows the risks that come with such attitude transport. “Harley bikers appreciate initiatives such as Think Bike, a motorcycle safety awareness campaign. And we actually get on well with Joburg’s infamous taxi drivers, who frequently give us right of way and a couple of hoots. But you always have to remember that the chances of not being seen by another driver are high. Protective gear is a priority.”
Evans says she has more Harley T-shirts than is respectable, picking up gear wherever she travels. As yet, there is no tattoo, although a permanent but discretely located Harley emblem has not been ruled out.
The Harley machine can be clumsy and heavy at any speed, weighing in at over 300 kilograms. “So if you’re in the wrong gear at the wrong speed, that bike is going down no matter how hard you try and fight it. There’s nothing you can do but get out the way and then stand around looking vulnerable so one of the guys will pick it up for you. It is also a thirsty beast, but well worth the costs as the thrill and benefits from riding a Harley are exceptional. It’s far cheaper and better for you than antidepressants.”
She also has a BMW f650GS, bought for the daily commute to the JSE–but as yet she remains attached to her Audi Quattro for the trip into Sandton, South Africa’s business district near Johannesburg.
Another passion for Evans is XBRL—eXtensible Business Reporting Language. She wants the entire financial world to move to this universally understood communication tool. Through a central hub of reporting, financial information is created once and then feeds into other platforms such as annual financial statements, Stats SA requirements, SARS submissions and Financial Services Board data needs. She oversaw the JSE’s June 2010 introduction of a portal which enables companies to voluntarily file using XBRL.
Evans is not so complimentary about IFRS—International Financial Reporting Standards—as it has reached a point where financial reporting requirements are unintelligible to most auditors, analysts and financial directors. “Only a handful of technical specialists fully understand them. In our goal to achieve uniform financial reporting, we have somehow lost control. IFRS is not business-intuitive and the end result does not always represent economic reality, but on the flip side, at least we are all reporting in the same way.”
Despite working at the exchange, Evans says she has not mastered the elusive art of successful investing. “I always seem to buy high and sell low. So now it’s really simple—I invest in exchange-traded funds and the decision-making stress is taken away.”
You could argue that the Harley-Davidson does the same job.
&nbsp;

The Rip Roar Of Easy Riding Chartered Accountants

One person’s passion can change the fate of humanity for good. Add a dose of personal tragedy to the mix, and you get a fascinating case study in the drive to change healthcare in Africa’s second-largest and fastest-growing economy.
<div id="attachment_175" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-175" class="size-large wp-image-175" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/1-2-731x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="664" />Ola OrekunrinWelcome to the world of Ola Orekunrin, medical doctor, helicopter pilot, author, medical research fellow, fan of Hannibal Lecter movies and one of Nigeria’s trailblazing entrepreneurs.</div>
Orekunrin, 25, is among the brightest of a new breed of young and visionary entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, she is an African who has made her name in Europe and is now bringing home that experience to the continent to create wealth and jobs. She saw an opportunity in helping everyone from oil companies to factories airlift injured workers to distant hospitals after accidents.
Nigerians have been talking about an air ambulance system for the country since the early 1960s. No-one had taken up the idea, until Orekunrin stepped in two years ago.
“I’m very passionate about healthcare in Nigeria and I really do believe I was born to practise medicine,” she says.
How has she achieved so much at such a young age? A healthy measure of humility may be one reason.
“I’m the most clumsy, disorganized, eccentric person ever…honestly,” she says defensively.
The trauma and emergency specialist is poised to change the face of medical practice on the continent with Flying Doctors Nigeria Limited—West Africa’s first medical emergency evacuation service. She studied air ambulance services in India and elsewhere in Africa, before founding Flying Doctors with £200,000 ($313,000). The money came from the liquidation of her assets, including her life savings, fast car and London apartment. Private investors matched the money.
Today, she employs 25 professionals and the firm is poised for speedy growth, considering the retinue of current and prospective clients in the financial services, petroleum and public sectors.
“Our main clients are from the oil and gas industry and manufacturing firms. I definitely think patronage from these sectors is set to grow,” she says.
The service that Flying Doctors provides fills a gaping hole in quality healthcare in the world’s sixth-largest crude oil producer. Often distances between factories, remote oil industry installations and hospitals can be more than 100 kilometers. For this reason alone, Orekunrin is optimistic about more business coming from Nigerian and international corporates. She also expects increased business from the public sector and state governments, as most do not have organised disaster management systems.
“Tragedy led me to entrepreneurship,” she says. “I believe that perhaps my sister, who died when she was just 12 years old, may have lived if this sort of service was available in Nigeria at the time. I feel the need to make a difference and prevent it happening to someone else. So my main childhood motivation for becoming a doctor was because my sister was ill when I was growing up and I had very positive experiences with doctors and nurses. My mother wasn’t keen on me taking up flying, my other interest, so I went to medical school. My inner-rebellious child started learning to fly as soon as I left medical school. I love flying now, nearly as much as medicine!”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-174" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/1-28-1024x731.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="338" />
Born in London and raised in a working-class foster home in Lowestoft, a little fishing town in the East of England, she enrolled for a medical degree at the University of York and qualified at 21—one of the youngest ever to take the doctor’s Hippocratic Oath in Britain.
Barely out of medical school, she jetted off to Japan for medical research work and then China, where she had “one of the most invaluable experiences”, in addition to picking up Japanese and a liking for sushi.
“My proficiency in Japanese meant nothing to people in China,” she told FORBES AFRICA. “After growing up in England, Asia was an interesting shock to my system, but my experience there has greatly influenced my work ethic and attitude to life.”
Now Orekunrin lives in Lagos, West Africa’s commercial hub and Africa’s fastest growing city with a current population of 19 million.
“It’s hard enough practising medicine in Nigeria, and I’ve seen that people tend to wonder why I am doing what I am doing now. I am getting used to the positive prejudice,” she quips.
“Starting a business like this has been much harder than I thought. It was a lot of hard work, with a lot of discouragement. There were a number of points when I thought it would never happen. It took an enormous amount of dedication, focus and sacrifice. But the number of lives we save each year makes it all worth it. I would do it all again in a heartbeat.”
Flying Doctors received its initial technical support from the UK’s East Anglian Air Ambulance Service. A portion of operating profits is ploughed into the Flying Doctors Foundation, which funds public healthcare projects in Nigeria. She won’t disclose what the firm is currently worth, but the rapid response air ambulance service they provide has been hailed as one of the most important healthcare innovations in Nigeria this decade.
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Flying Doctor Shoots For The Stars

It’s a warm, overcast, spring afternoon in Julius Nyerere Avenue in the heart of Maputo amid the hooters and rattle of people driving home from work through the potholes. On the side of the road in front of brand spanking new bank headquarters, a group of urbane bankers chat quietly and shift from foot to foot in expectation.
The building used to be a hotel as rundown as the streets that run by it. “This was a ruin; now look at it,” says one of the senior managers proudly. A small curious crowd has gathered. The word is out that one of the richest men in the world is about to arrive. A car sweeps in like a summer breeze off Maputo Bay; a group of people jump out. “Which one is he?” says someone nearby.
<div id="attachment_147" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-147" class="size-large wp-image-147" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/290-647-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Banco Unico branch in Maputo, Mozambique; 15 September 2011 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff.</div>
Closing the door behind him is the man himself, dressed in grey suit, with a red-striped shirt and matching tie; Américo Amorim—the 212th richest man on earth, according to FORBES in 2010, worth an estimated $4 billion. With a gentle smile and handshake, he blends into the waiting crowd of bankers and could be one of them. If you are looking for a billionaire who wears his eminence lightly, look no further than this man; a man who not only admires Nelson Mandela, but also appears to subscribe to the great man’s approach to humility.
Make no mistake, there is an iron will behind the smile and a reputation in Maputo—born of his latest deal—as a tough negotiator. Amorim, who made a fortune from putting corks into the world’s bottles, was in Maputo to see where a chunk of his fortune has gone. The 77-year-old entrepreneur’s empire is in a joint venture with Portuguese conglomerate Visabeira, which owns 61% of Mozambique’s newest bank, Banco Unico, which has opened in Maputo with $20 million in initial equity share capital. The remainder, aside from a small stake for management, is owned by Mozambique-based private companies and pension funds.
<div id="attachment_166" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-166" class="wp-image-166 size-large" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/290-76-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="711" />High-rise construction in Maputo, Mozambique; 14 September 2011 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff.</div>
Amorim, speaking through aninterpreter, is not fazed by his lofty FORBES ranking: “I am indifferent to that. My passion is to build companies&#8230; My happiness is to be busy.” Amorim has certainly been busy for almost his entire adult life. He took over the management of the family cork business at the tenderage of 18, when his parents died; from that moment, according to his close colleagues, Amorim has worked at least 12 hours a day in more than half a century as an entrepreneur. The Amorim Group has its roots in a small family cork business started by Amorim’s grandfather in 1870. The business is based in the tiny town of Mozelos, 19 kilometers from Porto, near the Portuguese forests, which hold more than half of the world’s cork. The young Amorim took to the family business with a will and travelled the world to sell cork.
In 1958, he journeyed to the then unfashionable Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc to strike deals. It made his company Portugal’s biggest exporter to Eastern Europe. In 1962, Amorim invested 75,000 euros ($102,000) in the business, to modernize and mechanize; the company consolidated cork production in Portugal and down the years expanded into Spain, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria and Sardinia.
Nearly 60 years on from the young Amorim’s first day in the office, the family empire declared sales of 457 million euros ($621 million) in April and posted profits of 20.5 million euros ($27.8 million) for 2010. The company is the world’s largest manufacturer of corks, making three billion a year. One in four corks popped around the globe is made by Amorim’s company. Like the corks, Amorim’s investments have also popped up far and wide, including: 33.44 % of GALP, Portugal’s energy company; a share in Spain’s third largest  financial institution, Banco
Popular; and in BIC, a commercial bank in Angola. Despite this vast wealth, Amorim has no time for fast boats and private jets—corks are his business and passion. In fact, rare passion flows in the interview when the thorny subject of plastic bottle stoppers comes up. “Plastic is not appropriate for wine.
Nature never spoils. The champagne industry has been in existence for 320 years and it has never stopped using corks. Corks are always preferred by people with good taste. It (plastic stoppers) is a bad taste idea,” he says. So why is this man, with a passion for corks, throwing millions into Mozambique’s often uncertain banking sector with its past allegations of corruption? Legendary investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso was gunned down in a Maputo street in 2000 while at the heart of an investigation into corruption in banking in Mozambique.
<div id="attachment_167" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-167" class="size-large wp-image-167" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/290-289-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Portuguese billionaire &amp; majority shareholder of newly launched Banco Unico, celebrates the opening of the bank&#8217;s headquarters in Maputo, Mozambique; 14 September 2011 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff.</div>
A lot has changed in the last 10 years, but there is still talk among sources in the know in Maputo of murky goings on in the banks. But Amorim is unconcerned. “I don’t consider Mozambique a risk. It has stability and its institutions are functioning. It is a rich country with a lot of raw materials and minerals… I have investments in 37 countries around the world, including Europe, and even there, there is corruption. It’s not a thing that bothers me.” The rewards for risk in Mozambique could be high for those with light feet and an eye for a fast return. In the week that Amorim landed in Maputo, the first coal exports from the mighty Moatize project, near Tete in the north-west corner of the country, was railed down the Sena railway line and exported through the northern port of Beira.
The Moatize expects to ramp up to four million tons of thermal coal a year, for electricity production. It has a target of 52 million tons by 2026, according to consultants working on the project. On top of this, BHP Billiton runs the Mozal smelter, just to the south of Maputo; South African energy giant Sasol is investing $300 million into the Pande gas field 600km north east of the capital. In Maputo itself, foreign investors have brought the swinging construction cranes back to the skyline as they build offices and homes for the newly wealthy.
Mozambique, once the poorestcountry in the world, where less than two decades ago even food was scarce, is growing fast and the financial industry is growing with it.
A report by KPMG in 2009 said the banks of Mozambique were highly profitable, despite the international financial crisis, seeing a profit of $116.4 million for the year, up 17.9% on 2008. Revenue from loans grew by 13.3% and bad debts were less than 2%. New anti-corruption laws are on the way, even though they are greeted with scepticism by many Mozambican business people. “It will exist only on paper,” chuckled a young Mozambican entrepreneur over a beer in a nearby restaurant.
One Mozambican who is bullish about his economy, to say the least, is Joao Figueiredo, the home-grown CEO One of the many cranes operating in the heart of Maputo of Banco Unico. He predicts that the economy will grow at 10.5% by 2013, compared to the current growth of 6.6%. Even so, Banco Unico could struggle to lend in the early days in the face of high interest rates. The International Monetary Fund is urging Mozambique to keep a tight monetary policy to fight inflation of around 12.8%, even at the risk of a slowdown in the economy.
Despite this, the repo rate came down in August, but before anyone got too excited, it went down to 16%. Couldn’t this be a problem for the new bank on the block? Not exactly, says Figueiredo. “When you look at the market you have to look beyond the short term to the long-term possibilities of Mozambique… The economy appreciates in terms of long-term. There is potential for the future, especially in the mining sector. The stability of the inflation rate and itsdecrease from the beginning of the year is a good sign.” Banco Unico is trying a different approach to break into a market which is dominated by four major banks. Its branches are all designer furniture and soft background music, more airport lounge than bank; there are no queues and there’s coffee while you wait for your consultant to deal with you one-on-one.
It is clear that the bank is aimed at the moneyed middle class, which, the cynics point out, excludes most of the population. Fernando Lima, a veteran Maputo journalist, says: “There are inefficiencies in the banks here. They are expanding but don’t have the human resources to keep pace. There is a lot of poaching of top staff. People also want to see more competition among the banks.” Figueiredo says: “The four biggest banks have 90.2% of the market. It is a concentrated market. There is competition, but there is room for more.
Room to grow as a financial system… The system is not yet mature and that contribution we can give to the market. There is space for more banks, but there are things you need to know before coming to Mozambique. You can’t come with foreign concepts because they won’t work here.” Banco Unico plans to go regional in the future; it appears the world’s 212th richest billionaire is in for the long haul. The interviews in the offices overlooking Maputo harbor, conducted to the crash of waves below, are over. It is night now and the many colored lights of the ships in the harbor shine forth like beacons.
As I thank Amorim for his time and patience he says, through the translator: “You don’t get tired when you love what you do.” For now, Amorim loves putting foreign direct investment into Mozambique, an emerging economy that needs it more than most.

Popping Millions Into Mozambique

The city of Mutare, set in a hollow on the Zimbabwe-Mozambique border, is sweltering under another blue sky. In this border town hemmed in by dramatic mountains, a small scene is being played out in the historic stage play that is Zimbabwe’s indigenization policy.
The lead actor is 52-year-old Charles Tawazadza—a man who has gone from manager to boss at this busy dry dock almost overnight, thanks to the country’s attempt to give black Zimbabweans a larger slice of the economy.
<div id="attachment_143" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-143" class="size-large wp-image-143" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Dryport_4-801x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="606" />Mutare Dry Port, Charles Tawazadza</div>
“When you talk about this wealth, you are talking about the wellbeing of generations. We did not borrow this land or economy from our ancestors. We borrowed it for the future generations to come. If we don’t acquire it and make good use of it, future generations will be spitting on our graves instead of praising us,” he says.
The company, through which Tawazadza now strolls confidently in his corporate uniform, is one of thousands of foreign-owned outfits across Zimbabwe that appear destined to be taken over by people born and bred in the country. They range from mines to banks and safari companies. The Empowerment Ministry has threatened to revoke or suspend operating licences for more than 500 foreign owned companies, which haven’t yet fallen in line. That is a lot of valuable equity up for grabs and the word is the well connected are hovering.
Tawazadza has taken over Mutare Dry Port, a shipping cargo company with a $3 million asset value. It used to be called GMS Cornelder and had been owned by Mozambican investors since 2000. When pressure came to hand over 51% of the equity, the Mozambicans put forward Tawazadza, who had worked in management at the company for many years, to take control and settled for being minority shareholders.
Even Tawazadza’s name fitted—in Shona it means “to fill up”. Mutare Dry Port has rail sidings with a holding capacity of 24 wagons, a general and bonded warehouse, plus container handling equipment. It has global networks through partnerships operating under specialized air and ocean freights, road and rail transportation, and warehousing and container handling. It means everything from second-hand cars from Japan, to fruit from South America, arrives at Mutare Dry Port to fill up the rolling stock. Many of the goods arrive at docks in Beira in Mozambique and are shipped by rail to Mutare.
Rail runs into Tawazadza’s huge transit shed and container yard, which handles 180,000 tons of shipments every month. There’s even a runway—a legacy of the British Royal Air Force, which used the site as a base during World War II. Tawazadza compares the indigenization laws to the 2000 seizure of farms by liberation war veterans. He says they too are part of an “economic emancipation” program to empower black people.
Against the allegations that these deals are merely for political cronies, Tawazadza says: “I have never met Mugabe. The laws are not anything to enrich Mugabe. He was our leader during the liberation struggle, and he is our leader today in this struggle for economic emancipation. “If you look at the noise which is coming out of the indigenization and economic empowerment, it will come to pass,” Tawazadza says.
The whites in Zimbabwe, Tawazadza says, are “calledRhodesians because Cecil John Rhodes was here to create wealth for them. And this is what President Mugabe is doing for us.” President Mugabe’s jumbled commercial farm seizures have reduced agricultural production, leaving unexploited farms, after driving out over 4,000 former white farmers in the name of an agrarian revolution. Independent economist John Robertson claims farm production is 60% down compared to 1998, although government figures refute this. “Over 4,000 white farmers have been replaced by over 400,000 black owners. All these blacks represent Mugabe’s vision,” Tawazadza said. “People are negotiating and cutting deals without government intervention. I acquired this company on my own.
No one from government came to negotiate on my behalf,” Tawazadza said. But the laws could prove a Pyrrhic victory for a country desperate to emerge from a long recession. Capital could dry up, and the capacity of Zimbabweans to borrow and increase production may be limited. Investors say the laws could scare foreign companies with concerns about property rights, leaving Zimbabwe as a hard sell.
Ray William Black, of Investec Securities, said at a recent investor conference in Harare: “The economy of Zimbabwe has been improving over the last years, but to attract investment, foreign investors have a choice to make. If one country has more onerous conditions than another, then investment will stay away.
<div id="attachment_144" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-144" class="size-large wp-image-144" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Dryport_5-1024x655.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="303" />Mutare Dry Port, Charles Tawazadza</div>
“No country should make it too difficult for investors if they want to attract money. In Zimbabwe, companies that have been operating are caught between a rock and a hard place. They are already under immense pressures, and facing major changes.”
Back in Mutare, Tawazadza has plans to expand and turn his company into a $10 million asset. For a man in the cargo business, with a name that means filling up, there is no turning back or thought of unloading his new business.

51% Or Our Children Will Spit On Our Graves

China is playing a big role in African oil through its exploration companies, like Sinopec and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation, which are showing an increased interest in the commodity.
<div id="attachment_150" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-150" class="size-large wp-image-150" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Par1912664-1024x685.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="317" />UGANDA-CONGO-OIL-CONFLICT-FISHERMEN</div>
Duncan Clarke, chairman and CEO of Global Pacific &amp; Partners, and a leading authority on African oil, says that most of the BRICS nations, along with emerging economies such as Korea, have an interest in Africa. He says there are around 500 companies involved in upstream oil production on the continent, many opting for joint venture arrangements. Africa’s long-term oil and gas potential is huge but politics may hamper growth.
FORBES/FOCUS oil in Africa “The terms are getting tougher and what may appear demanding on the investor actually smacks of resources nationalism,” says Clarke. Political instability in the East Africa region has impeded any major developments over the past 20 years in countries like Somalia, Mozambique, Uganda and Ethiopia, according to research analyst at Frost and Sullivan, Ross Bruton. Aside from political instability, there is inadequate infrastructure, especially at ports. Refining capacity is lacking in many countries, including those with a long-established track record of reliable oil reserves such as Nigeria and Angola, according to Bruton. South Africa—which has no oil reserves to speak of—currently holds 80% of refining capacity in Southern Africa.
<h3>SOUTHERN AFRICA:</h3>
Southern Africa is not a major oil producer, with the notable exception of the Cabinda region of Angola which has reserves of over 5 billion barrels and surpassed the 2 billion barrel per day average production of African oil heavyweight Nigeria in 2008.
Oil companies with clout in Angola include the parastatal oil company Sonangol, Texas-based ExxonMobil, France’s Total and British Petroleum. California-based Chevron was the first multinational to be fined by an African country when Angola punished it for unsound environmental practices in 2002.
The Southern African scene may well change in the future through the discovery in July of 11 billion barrels of oil reserves o‑ the Namibian coastline. One of the key companies involved is a subsidiary of London-listed Chariot Oil, Enigma Oil &amp; Gas. “Much deep oil opportunity exists o‑ the coasts of Namibia and Angola,” says Bruton.
The DRC is a smaller oil producer with Total and Italian Oil Company Eni dominating. ExxonMobil and Chevron are also there. Mozambique is another exciting Southern African energy producer, according to Bruton. The country is a major developer of natural gas and supplies South African oil and gas heavyweight Sasol. Most recently, Mozambique’s oil authority announced that the US-based energy company, Anadarko Mozambique, had discovered a 200 billion cubic meter gas resource in the mineral-rich Rovuma basin, where Anadarko has significant investments.
<h3>EAST AFRICA:</h3>
Few strides in oil development have been made in East Africa because of political instability in the region. But the region has vast oil potential. Somalia alone has estimated reserves of around 10 billion barrels, but the country’s troubled political climate is scaring o‑ investment. Tullow Oil, which operates in 15 African countries, is the only significant energy company with interests in East Africa. Its most notable holding is in Uganda’s Lake Albert
Rift Basin where 1.1 billion barrels have been discovered, with a further 1.4 billion expected to be found. Tullow says that it could produce as much as 200,000 bpd in the country, but has run into difficulties. Some exploratory e‑ ort has been made in relatively stable Kenya, but with little success to recommend the country as a viable energy developer. However, mineral discoveries in Mozambique have spurred hope that black gold is lurking underneath Kenyan soil. Media reports from the country claim that small, independent developers are selling their licenses to Western-based energy giants, although details on these deals are not forthcoming.
<h3>WEST AFRICA:</h3>
Nigeria has the biggest explored oil reserves in sub-Saharan Africa with a presence by most of the major oil producers. It has an estimated 37 billion barrels worth of petroleum compared to Angola, which is the next biggest oil producer in Africa at 13 billion barrels. Both countries are restricted to 2 million bpd production by OPEC. Ghana is another potential rich producer in West Africa—40 billion barrels worth of reserves are estimated and these are located deep at sea. Bruton says attention has turned towards Ghana since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, which has prompted more regulation on deep sea oil exploration in the northern hemisphere. Tullow operates in Ghana’s Jubilee Fields, which are estimated at 1 billion barrels. Production is seen reaching 120,000 bpd this year.

Africa Awash With Oil

The chief executive of Randgold Resources, Mark Bristow, is no corporate cypher in a pinstriped suit, making decisions from afar. “I don’t believe in big offices and bureaucracies,” says the man whose company has no head office—just an operating center in the Malian capital of Bamako. With the spirit of a true entrepreneur, he likes to be on the ground and appears to relish difficult conditions.
<div id="attachment_154" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-154" class="size-large wp-image-154" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/279-42-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="711" />Mark Bristow, CEO of Randgold Resources. Johannesburg, 18 August 2011 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff.</div>
And from the start, following the incorporation of Randgold Resources in 1995, the acquisition of BHP Mali in 1996 and the London Stock Exchange listing in 1997, Bristow set a cracking pace. Three operations were built in just 10 years: Morila in Mali; Loulo, a four-mine complex (also in Mali); and Tongon in Côte d’Ivoire. This period also saw the confirmation of a new discovery at Massawa in Senegal and the acquisition of a 45% interest in the Kibali project in the DRC.
Bristow may have raised the eyebrows and increased the pulse rate of investors along the way, but the story of the rapid rise of Randgold Resources cannot be gainsaid, and those who have kept the faith have been rewarded amply. In the 10 years to 2009, the company was the best performing stock in the STOXX600 Europe Index, recording a stellar rise of 4,776%. In the five years to 2010, basic earnings per share increased by 63%, from $0.70 to $1.14, and dividend payments went up by 100%. In the past three years, net profits have increased by 157%, from $47 million in 2008 to $120.6 million in 2010.
Conventional wisdom would have had the odds stacked against Randgold Resources from the start. The intention was that the company would confine itself to gold, so there was no possibility of spreading risk by mining other minerals. It was driven by explorers whose only experience
Was of deep-level mining in South Africa. At the time that it needed to fund the development of its mine, Randgold Resources had no revenue-producing operations and the gold price was at an all-time low. Finally, the assets of Randgold Resources were all in Africa—not everyone’s idea of a safe investment haven. Yet this Pan-African pure gold player is on the blue chip FTSE 100 and its stock trades at a premium to the market. Bristow recalls the early days of the company. “We were attracted to Africa beyond South Africa after the postcolonial era of nationalism, socialism and nepotism. These ‘isms’ had preserved Africa’s natural resources, gold in particular. We had no money but a lot of ambition,” he says.
Randgold Resources added to its already substantial holdings in the prospective region of West Africa in 1996 with the buy-out of BHP in Mali, gaining a collection of exploration tenements and the less-than-desirable (as it turned out) Syama mine. The turning point came the next year when the world-class Morila deposit was discovered. He views the establishment of this mine as his company’s greatest achievement to date.
“We had a stressed balance sheet and we had to persuade the bank to lend us 100% of the money to develop the deposit. This was at a time when the gold price had gone from $400/oz to $260/oz. We could so easily have lost the company,” he explains. People questioned whether Randgold Resources had the expertise to build a mine. These critics were silenced when Morila (including the construction of a 30 power station) was completed on time and on budget. The first gold was poured and a profit was made in the first quarter of operation, and since October 2000, the operation has produced 5.8 million ounces of gold and distributed more than $1.6 billion to stakeholders. “It’s been the most lucrative gold mine in the world in the last two decades,” he notes.
The development of a major mine in Mali, the third-poorest country in Africa, takes some nerve but Bristow, unsurprisingly, does not hold the conventional view that the continent is a difficult place in which to operate. “It’s a fine place to work and it’s not bound by hoity-toity corporate governance janitors. It’s a place for passionate, ambitious people who want to make a difference to other people’s lives,” he says.
His first core belief about doing business in Africa is the importance of establishing relationships. “If you want to invest in Africa, you can’t do it by remote control. You have to build partnerships and to do that, you have to travel. You have to get to know your team. You have to know the political, social and commercial environment of each country.” The holder of a pilot’s license, he usually flies himself to the company’s operations—the trip from Abidjan to Tongon in a Cessna 206 being a particular favorite.
The importance of relationships notwithstanding, Bristow makes no apologies for being uncompromising when necessary. “You can’t be nice all the time. That’s a mistake that many foreign companies make. Africa is not for sissies. We don’t bribe. We stick to our values and we don’t shy away from robust encounters with stakeholders and governments.” The story of Randgold Resources in Côte d’Ivoire illustrates his approach. Before the building of Tongon started, the company had talks with the government. In a nutshell, the message was: “We’ll come and invest, but you need to keep us safe.” That said, many would question the decision to do business in a country that was split between government and rebel forces after the 2002-04 civil war and was later divided between supporters of Alassane Ouattara, the winner of the presidential elections held at the end of 2010, and Laurent Gbagbo, the former president who refused to step down.
Bristow’s response is interesting. He says that Côte d’Ivoire has a “deeper institution” or regulatory framework than most African countries. “At all times, that institution has reinforced our deal and respected our contracts.” He admits that things became very difficult at the end of 2010. “We had to deal with social unrest and people wanted to steal,” he says. However, the mine did not arm its security forces even though there was one ton of gold piled up in the safe. “We made it clear [to both factions] that we would not be used as a political football. The response of both governments was to ensure security for the operation and the community. They kept their word.”
This gave him the confidence to continue. “Other companies withdrew their expatriates. At no stage did we feel that we needed to pull people out. Our view was that ifit became too dangerous, we’d close the mine altogether,” he says. They never had to make that decision.
He concedes that the circumstances were highly complex. “We were in the middle of a conflict area under UN watch. We’ve had to manage in a social and political environment that has been turned on its head: the good guys became the bad guys and vice versa. We’ve built relationships and we talk to everyone.” These partnerships are the key to the company’s ability to operate in this type of situation and they are the nub of what separates his company from many others on the continent. It starts with a commitment to using local businesses. Apart from the difference that this makes to the economy, it makes good sense because these businessmen can open doors to government contacts and it means that the company is viewed as “local” rather than “foreign”. Since the commercial ventures in the surroundings are benefiting from the operation, it is less likely that people will interfere in its running and more likely that locals will defend it from attacks.
Bristow is scathing about the “comfort blankets” that so many foreign mining companies “drag with them” when they come to Africa. “They bring service providers, logistical support, security personnel and contractors from around the world and they build a perimeter wall around their business.” By adopting this approach, they make no real difference to the economy of the country.
That brings us to his second core belief: that if a companymines gold assets in Africa, it is beholden to create value for all stakeholders. “You don’t own the mine; you rent it. The country only begins to benefit when you start construction,” he notes, adding that the real benefits only start when profits are made and taxes are paid.
He says any one of the Randgold Resources’ mines consumes goods to the value of $10 million to $15 million a month. “If you can cycle such costs in the local economy, can you imagine what you do to that economy?” he asks. In preparation for the start of mining at Kibali, 400 kilometers of roads in the north-east DRC have been opened up. “For the first time since 1955, a bus was driven from Uganda to Doko in the DRC in August last year,” he says.
Locals are already feeling the benefits of these developments with the cost of living having fallen by 50%. He is confident that the new operation, with estimated reserves of 10 million ounces, will be a “big engine” for growth in that part of the country. Expected to be one of the largest mines on the continent, it is anticipated that first gold will be poured by the end of 2013.
The biggest sing single risk for Africa, in his view, is thepressure of poverty. His message to the anti-mining lobby and the “greenies” is that this is more destructive to the planet than everything else put together. “Poor people don’t care about rules and regulations; they just want to survive for the day. That’s why they’ll chop down the last tree. Lift them out of poverty then they’ll start looking after the environment.” And he has no doubt whatsoever that the way to liberate Africa is to create jobs. Since 1995, Randgold Resources has directly created 9,000 jobs and, at full operation, he expects Kibali to employ about 3,000 to 4,000 people.
The Randgold Resources philosophy is that local people are employed wherever possible and not only at junior levels. There is only one expatriate on the management team at Morila and local people make up well over half of the team at Loulo. He is impatient with people who hold the view that Africans cannot deliver and perform at the highest executive levels. “There are plenty of highly skilled Africans.
If you are prepared to invest in people, they are here. We’ve just been on an employment drive to the southern DRC and we had people queuing up,” he says. He makes the point that in countries like Mali and the DRC, the intellectual elite is to be found in mining.
Bristow, who holds a PhD in geology—his thesis was on the “esoteric” topic of chrome seams in the Bushveld Complex—from the University of Natal in South Africa, says he did not set out to be successful. The circumstances in which he found himself helped. So did the fact that he likes winning, loves making a difference and enjoys working in a team. Above all, he really believes in Africa and its people. “It’s got to be the place to be in the next 10 years,” he says.

Mine Building Maverick

Just over the road from the newest bank in Mozambique, a would-be tycoon was nurturing his dream to the clatter of knives, forks and glasses. It was a warm, busy Maputo night in a packed Mundos, on Julius Nyerere Avenue; Portuguese football giants, Benfica, played Manchester United on television.
<div id="attachment_169" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-169" class="size-large wp-image-169" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/290-564-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Mundo&#8217;s owner Albert Hechter, Maputo, Mozambique; 14 September 2011 &#8211; Photo by Brett Eloff.</div>
The tray-bearing waiters waltzed through the crowded bar with a fleet-footedness worthy of Wayne Rooney; the cold beer flowed down scores of throats with the ease of Ashley Young gliding down the wing. It ought to: this bar is the biggest retailer of beer in Mozambique selling 15,000 liters a month. In the middle of it all, the ready grin of mine host, Albert Hechter, a man who risked all 20 years ago and reaped a fortune.
“I could sell it for a million dollars now, but I won’t,” says Hechter breezily through the cackle of carousing patrons. It’s an entrepreneurial story that began in 1990 in the last days of a bitter civil war in Mozambique. Hechter arrived in the country to work in a hotel and left with an idea. “There weren’t even any cars on the road in Maputo in those days. But also, there were no restaurants or takeaways either,” says Hechter.
Towards the end of 1991, Hechter scraped together R15,000 ($1,900) in South Africa to buy two hot dog vans and drove north for the border. It was a huge step for Hechter, an Afrikaner from conservative Pretoria—a city where a big trip was a night out in Johannesburg. “Everyone thought I was mad! The war was still on in Mozambique. But I was 20 years old and had big balls.”
On arrival in Maputo, he parked one hot dog van on the beachfront and the other in Kenneth Kaunda Avenue, near to the foreign embassies. Sure enough, the idea bore fruit and within weeks there were snaking queues along the beach and around the embassies. Diplomats tore themselves away from foreign affairs to send their drivers to buy the only hot dog with mustard in Mozambique.
A year later, Hechter borrowed R70,000 ($8,900) from his dad in Pretoria to buy a snack bar in downtown Maputo—the forebear of Mundos. These were busy and lucrative times for those who had the wherewithal to put up any form of refreshment or entertainment in bleak post war Maputo. The city may have been a rundown shadow of itself, but UN peacekeeping troops were in town and the US dollars swirled like a cloud of confetti around sparse entertainment hot spots. Hechter made a little pile and in 1994 left Mozambique to go traveling for a year. He arrived back in South Africa, just in time see his country win the 1995 Rugby World Cup, but found the bite of the Mozambique business bug as hard to shrug off as a Maputo mosquito.
So, by 1996, he was back in Maputo to build a new Mundos, this time on Julius Nyerere Avenue, in a building rented from the Catholic Church. He started with 40 seats and in 15 years, he has built it into a thriving watering hole with 370 seats. Every night, tourists, diplomats, businesspeople, pilots, engineers, soldiers, ex-soldiers and aid workers rub shoulders at the bar; you don’t have to enjoy a drink to enjoy the atmosphere, but it helps. In Mundos, I once met an English accent educated direct descendant of Archduke Franz Ferdinand—the Austrian heir to the throne whose assassination in Sarajevo sparked World War I. I pointed out that many of my family had perished in that war.
“Oh, I am terribly sorry about that,” he said in a very cut glass English accent. We both laughed. You see what I mean about drink. The bar used to be full of South Africans and expats from New York to Nigeria, but times are changing fast. Hechter reckons 80% of his customers are now middleclass Mozambicans with money to spend. “Most South Africans I see here now are builders looking for work.”
Above the din of the crowded bar, he said the recession appears to have passed Maputo by. “You go into the bars in Maputo and they are still packed. People in Mozambique don’t have the car and health payments that, say, South Africans do, so people have money to spend. The city is booming, rents are going up to between $3,000 and $4,000 a month. It is almost back to the days of UNiMOZ (when United Nations troops packed the city and paid premium rents). There are five construction cranes within one kilometer of this bar.” For the affable Hechter, the blue sky, over the palm fringed Maputo Harbor, is the limit as far as Mozambique’s economic fortunes are concerned.
His wife and children live over the border in South Africa, in Nelspruit, and he divides his time between Maputo and home—leading to the inevitable question over whether the next generation of the Hechters will be charging over the border into the exhilarating, heady uncertainty of Mozambique’s dynamic emerging economy. “I wouldn’t allow my kids to do it,” says Hechter with that wide smile that sold a million beers in Mozambique.
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Let Slip The Hot Dogs Of War

<div id="attachment_162" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-162" class="size-large wp-image-162" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/iStock_000013732621Large-1024x675.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="312" />Growth will be driven by government expenditure as revenues increase through higher oil production and prices</div>
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Following a remarkable run of double-digit growth, the Angolan economy took a hit in 2009 and 2010 due to a fiscal and balance of payments crisis. However, the signs of a strong recovery are in the offing and economic prospects are now looking brighter. Already all three main rating agencies, Moody’s, Fitch and Standard &amp; Poor’s, have raised the country’s sovereign rating. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects GDP growth of 3.7% in 2011, building on the 3.4% of 2010. The IMF expects growth to accelerate to 10.8% in 2012. Growth will be driven by government expenditure as revenues increase through higher oil production and prices. The IMF’s stand-by arrangement (SBA)—a credit line—which runs until February 2012, is likely to anchor macroeconomic policies in the medium-term at least.
<div id="attachment_134" style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-134" class="size-full wp-image-134" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/angola.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="376" />Growth will be driven by government expenditure as revenues increase through higher oil production prices</div>
Government expenditure will focus on massive social and infrastructural gaps in the economy. The construction sector will continue to play a central role. The mining sector is likely to get a boost as the government plans to diversify the economy away from oil and gas production, as recommended by the IMF. Angola has substantial mineral deposits which include iron ore, copper and diamonds. The mining sector was deemed unviable during the civil war and neglected. After the civil war, the sector took a back seat to oil and gas production and attracted little investment. A major development in the mining sector will be the introduction of a new mining code that is aimed at boosting investment into the sector. The code was passed by parliament in July this year and is set to come into eff­ect by year-end. The state, through its mining company Endiama, aims to play a major role and to take 51% in all diamond mines.
Infrastructural bottlenecks and robust domestic demand are likely to keep infl ation elevated in the months ahead. On the political front, the ruling Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola (MPLA) continues to dominate.
<div id="attachment_161" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-161" class="size-large wp-image-161" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/iStock_000015823770Large-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="316" />Oil Platform offshore Angola</div>
It holds 191 of the 220 seats in parliament. The fractured opposition will only help the MPLA keep power. Elections are set for late 2012. The incumbent president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, is expected to stay in power. In February 2010, the country adopted a new constitution whereby the president is no longer elected by popular vote; instead the president will be from the party with the most seats in parliament. The government has faced huge challenges since the end of the civil war. Poverty is still prevalent despite the country’s huge mineral wealth. Infrastructure remains poor following decades of civil war. There is discontent among the people, who feel they should be getting their fair share of economic prosperity. This discontent is unlikely to see a repeat of the “Arab Spring” on the south-west coast of Africa, though. Angolans are weary of conflict.
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Angola Rising From The Ashes Of War

In Hotel Continental’s restaurant along the bay of the Angolan capital Luanda, Russo Flora exudes energy, enthusiasm and a deep-seated faith in his country. “Angolans have a natural talent for business and commerce,” is the first thing he says. “During communism and the civil war, food here was very, very scarce.
<div id="attachment_131" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-131" class="size-large wp-image-131" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Russo-15x22.5cm-0029-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="711" />Flora Russo</div>
We’ve learned to improvise and survive under all circumstances. To me, being an entrepreneur is to create.” Thirty-three-year-old Flora, married with one son, was born and raised in the Angolan capital of Luanda. After studying English in South Africa, he won a sponsorship from the Angolan Fishing Ministry to study civil engineering in London. In 2002, he accepted a job as a senior property consultant at English estate agency, Bairstow Eves, and soon became the best salesman at their northern office. In 2003 he became senior land investment advisor at English Land Partnership.
“All that was part of my strategy to become a property entrepreneur,” he says. But then his father, George Flora, fell ill. Flora decided to move back to Angola, where in 2006, at the age of 26 he took over his father’s small consulting-engineering firm, Gabeng. George Flora became Angola’s Construction Minister in 1984 and founded the business in 1990. Russo Flora now owns Gabeng together with his mother.
“I had to decide whether to remain a small company, or to take Gabeng to a different level and transform it into the group of companies that it is today.” Three months later, Flora closed a contract for an infrastructure and sewage network in Luanda, called Projeto Morar, worth $600,000. It was a tall order for a company with few engineers. “I used to wear the contractors’ boots in the morning, take a quick shower, and then put on my engineers’ suit.
I was also our consultant and commercial director.” His hard work paid off. “When I took over in 2008, Gabeng was turning over between $120,000 and $300,000 a year. Six years later, my group of four companies is turning over between $700,000 and $2 million annually.” Flora’s early success further triggered his entrepreneurial creativity. “In 2006, I founded LF Construction.” After roughly four months, Flora closed a contract of $900,000 to do major excavation works in Viana and Barro do Dande, for the construction of two municipal hospitals.
<div id="attachment_157" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-157" class="size-large wp-image-157" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/RTR2EG45-1024x595.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="275" />ANGOLA-CENBANK</div>
That same year Flora set up a topographic engineering company, TopoEng. In 2008, LF Construction closed a partnership with Chinese company AC-YAUNG Group. Angola receives huge, oil-backed loans from China to help finance postwar reconstruction projects, carried out mostly by the Chinese. Flora “decided to catch the wave rather than swim against the tide”, which paid off. They built a large logistical base for TeleService in Soyo province for 300 “low-income, decent-sized” houses for Angola’s war veterans. Flora is confident about the potential of his company: “I believe LF Construction is our future.”
Flora’s fourth company, ITO, is not yet officially registered. “With big construction projects, I often ended up managing small construction works such as kitchens, done by others. So I decided to do that myself.” ITO comes with important side benefits, he explains. “In Angola, people don’t know who to call, who to trust. That’s where ITO comes in. You never know whose door you might walk into. It might be a successful businessman who offers you a big contract, which has already happened.” Condominium management, an upcoming market in Angola, will become one of ITO’s focus areas.
Being an entrepreneur in Angola is not a picnic. In the World Bank’s Doing Business in 2011 report, Angola ranks 163 out of 183 economies for Ease of Doing Business. “We have great problems in terms of electricity and water supply. So first buy a generator and a water reservoir,” says Flora. “Then there is a lot of bureaucracy involved in importing goods via the harbor. Road access and traffic jams are problematic, the latter mainly in Luanda… I believe in time management. One of my most innovative ideas was to have a fully-equipped mobile office in my car.” Finding skilled Angolan labor is also extremely difficult, according to Flora.
“If you want properly trained people, you’re often forced to employ expats, and they’ll cost you three or four times more. Our solution is to outsource work to other foreign companies in Angola.” At the same time, Flora uses 70% Angolan labor. On Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, Angola ranks among the world’s 10 most corrupt countries—168 out of 178. “Corruption is still a big issue in developing countries,” Flora says, “Competition here is tough and often unfair. But at least it’s transparent. People tell you: ‘Listen, if you don’t have good connections here, forget it.’entities.
“Everything we’ve done is thanks to sweat and hard work. If I had strong ties with the truly influential people here, then maybe we would be having this conversation in my private jet.” According to him, Angola is entering a new era. “The government is tackling corruption,” he says. “And I do not foresee any new civil war or political instability.” With Flora’s positive outlook, the sky is the limit. “Within LF Construction I’m opening a food division. We want to buy big quantities of fish and transport those to the most remote rural areas of Angola, where fish prices are extremely high.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-158" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/AM3A64-680x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="714" />
“The fishing industry is one of Angola’s monopolies,” he explains. “Foreign ships come in, suck up huge quantities of fish and transport them back to their own countries. But the fish you find in Angolan supermarkets has all been imported.” Flora encourages all entrepreneurs to take a close look at Angola. “Angola is a rich country, and there are dividends to be made. Anywhere you go you can either plant, build, or mine something.”

Author: Forbes Africa

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Out Of The Dust Grow The Roses Of Success