The names Nhlanhla Nciza and Mafikizolo are like bread and butter. Nciza embodies style and elegance, but behind this creative, is a businesswoman trying to make her mark parallel to her music career.
When she grabs the microphone, the world dances at her feet. Nciza fills the stage with joie de vivre and ebullience. She has the voice most people only dream of, that contemporary, yet retro throwback to Miriam Makeba, which appeals to both young and old. She dances on stage with panache, like a shy child being encouraged, but with elegance and class.
Nciza, 36, is not just the ‘first lady’ of Mafikizolo, but a woman harnessing another passion into a business. Having taken interest in the imaging of her career, it naturally followed that this stylish songbird would make a successful foray into fashion design, through NN Vintage.
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Mafikizolo, which means ‘new arrivals’ in isiZulu, has long outgrown its name. Nciza and fellow band member, Theo Kgosinkwe, have stuck it out for more than a decade, through thick and thin.
The duo has enjoyed a longevity uncharacteristic of many music bands. They started out competing at talent competitions, and now they’ve ended up winning numerous accolades.
“The awards mean a lot. We’re getting more love than we did before,” she says.
At the fourth MTV Africa Music Awards (MAMAs) in June, in Durban, Nciza thought she had no chance. A Nigerian was certain to win with their country’s 125 million subscribers ready to cast their mobile votes. A safe bet, since the Nigerian mobile market is the largest on the continent. Instead it was Nciza and Kgosinkwe who ended up walking to the podium for Song of the Year, for their hit anthem Khona. They also won for ‘Best Group’.
“Winning Song of the Year means a lot especially that Nigeria has a bigger population than South Africa, and we still won the award. It shows that people still love our music all over the continent,” says Nciza.
Mafikizolo returned from the United States (US) in June following their debut at the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards in Los Angeles. The judges nominated Mafikizolo for Best African International Act, pitted against other exceptional African musicians including Nigeria’s Davido. Together, they had collaborated on a song called Tchelete, meaning money in seTswana, that’s currently ruling the airwaves in South Africa. Davido won on the night but for Mafikizolo, just being there – and performing for the first time in the US – was remarkable.
Fifteen months after releasing their double-platinum eighth album, Reunited, following their hiatus, the group sealed their comeback with eight wins at the South African Music Awards (SAMA) in April, along with Channel O and Metro FM Awards, also in South Africa.
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Trials And Tragedy
Mafikizolo’s story is also one of struggle. The band formed in 1997, and signed with one of South Africa’s biggest recording companies, Kalawa Jazzmee Records. Their first four albums barely made a ripple.
Worse was to come&#8230;
In December 2001, the group, then a three-member band, nearly died in a car accident. The trio had decided to drive to Katlehong, following a performance in Durban. Once home, they decided to drive in the dead of night to Mafikeng for a performance the next day.
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“Theo wanted to drive, I guess he wanted to impress his new girlfriend, now his wife. So the rest of us fell asleep and we were woken up by a big bang. And the next thing I remember was lying on the gravel on the side of the road,” says Nciza.
Their car had been hit by a train. Fortunately that night, all of them survived. The rest of the band was discharged the next day from hospital, but Nciza had to stay on for over three months.
Lucky to be alive, the group released an album the following year, Sibongile, meaning ‘we thank you’ in isiZulu. It was their breakthrough.
All was well. The group had picked up the pieces and were getting back on their feet when tragedy struck again on Valentine ’s Day in 2004. Vocalist Tebogo Madingoane was shot and killed in a road rage incident in South Africa.
Madigoane had brought the Kwaito sound to the group and his loss was another blow. Nciza and Kgosinkwe never thought they would end up as a duo, but in sadness, they did. After mourning Madingoane, the two picked themselves up with the sound of Mafikizolo.
Then came a purple patch. They released three more albums, Khwela, Van Toeka Af and Six Mabone.
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Mafikizolo 2.0
Their popularity grew but in 2008 they took a break to reinvent themselves as solo artists.
“It was scary for me and a completely different experience as I was so used to depending on Theo for so many things… I had to gain confidence and believe in myself, so I used my other talent to grab people’s attention and that was my [passion for] fashion,” she says.
During this time, Nciza released two albums, Inguquko (Change) and Lingcinga Zam (My Thoughts), and also started to put more hours into her clothing business, which she had started a year before.
However tragedy followed her. Nciza and her record company executive husband, Thembinkosi Nciza, lost their five-year-old daughter Zinathi in a car accident in December 2009. She was with her grandmother on their way to a pre-school to pick up a cousin when their car crashed into a tree. The grandmother blacked out behind the wheel and suffered minor leg and chest injuries.
“My work was greatly affected. I was in the middle of promoting my second album when Zinathi passed, so everything was on hold. A part of me is gone and it is the kind of emptiness that I may have to accept that may never be filled… I really did not know where to begin, where to start picking up the pieces and for a very long time I just remained in one place not knowing how to move on, it felt wrong to move on,” says Nciza.
“Were it not for my husband, I really don’t know how I could have started living again. In 2012, I was blessed with a son, Luvuyo and I am just grateful to God that he gave me a chance to be a mom again.”
<div id="attachment_6345" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6345" class="size-medium wp-image-6345" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/451413792-300x210.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="210" />LOS ANGELES, CA &#8211; JUNE 28: Singers Theo Kgosinkwe (L) and Nhlanhla Nciza of Mafikizolo perform onstage at the Music Around the Globe during the 2014 BET Experience At L.A. LIVE on June 28, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/BET/Getty Images for BET)</div>
After mourning her daughter, she pulled herself together, mustered strength and continued with her career. Her family kept her going.
“Keeping busy helped me focus on other things, so I started writing music again, performing and started designing again,” she says.
Through NN Vintage, Nciza started to hire young people looking for jobs.
“I wanted to develop young talent. It was more about the love [of clothes and music] and not making money. I didn’t look at it in the business sense,” she says.
Nciza says she acquired her compassionate nature from her father, a court interpreter, who, even when his immediate family was struggling, would invite cousins into his home. Nciza ventured into the fashion business without any prior experience.
She hired eight seamstresses, a receptionist and rented a small studio where they could work from, financing it all herself, at a cost of around R70,000 ($6,500) a month. Revenue from her music career kept the business alive. But it was doomed from the first stitch.
“I realized a year and a half into my business that I had employed too many people and [had] too much equipment. When the recession came, I was probably the first person to go down,” she says.
“I lost a lot of money, around R600,000 ($56,000) including my savings. I was new in fashion and I needed to prove myself. I was a new designer and I couldn’t sell a R10,000 ($930) dress.”
Most times, the people who bought her dresses were those who knew her and her music, yet there were times when she struggled to make sales. She was so proud she kept the business failures to herself.
“I didn’t want to tell people that NN Vintage wasn’t there anymore,” she says. Her husband could have helped financially, but Nciza wanted to go it alone. She had to let go of nearly all the employees who worked for her. By the end of 2010, to keep her brand alive, Nciza stopped dressing clients and only designed for herself.
The following year, she went back to the drawing board. She started by sketching her own designs and slowly hired seamstresses to bring her designs to life.
“Right now it makes sense. I still want to learn more and empower myself. I want to learn how to make a garment,” says Nciza.
“When I started out, I was a bit conservative. I wore below-the-knee dresses. It was me at the time. What I do is not necessarily following trends.”
And indeed, Nciza is a fashion risk-taker. She is a musician with a palette for setting trends, just like the black and white dress on the cover of this issue, which she first wore for the opening act of the MAMAs.
“For this particular performance, I wanted attire that commanded attention, so I played with a lot of color and bright accessories. My designs are always inspired by Africa. They are feminine, yet bold and fierce at the same time,” she says.
At last year’s SAMAs, she wore a long-sleeved silver umbrella shirt with a pink ribbon around her waist and skirt. Another risk she took was at this year’s Metro FM Awards where she wore a monochrome striped peplum shirt with an umbrella skirt.
Her designs are for her fans. The revived NN Vintage is aimed at making garments for young adults and older women carving a niche in their industries.
Having been in the fashion business only a few years now, Nciza admits she is not making “crazy” money just yet, but claims people trust her brand. Nciza says she now sells garments costing up to R7,500 ($700), and is slowly getting her clients back, some from as far as Tanzania and Botswana. This would allow her to employ designers and more seamstresses and also open a store when the time is right.
“I plan to create a special range to supply to bigger stores, so it can reach all parts of the country, as that is my biggest challenge right now. I have also started with a men’s range and it will be launched soon,” says Nciza.
Few musicians are able to juggle their music careers, business and family, but Nciza is doing well.
<div id="attachment_6346" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6346" class="size-medium wp-image-6346" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/451412938-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />LOS ANGELES, CA &#8211; JUNE 28: Singer Nhlanhla Nciza of Mafikizolo performs onstage at the Music Around the Globe during the 2014 BET Experience At L.A. LIVE on June 28, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/BET/Getty Images for BET)</div>
Mafikizolo’s music is inspired by their upbringing, their neighborhoods, their stories of love, and hardship.
“You don’t need to sell your soul in order to get ahead. Try and push, only talent will get you where you want,” she says.
Indeed, hard work and talent have taken Nciza and Mafikizolo to attain the success they are enjoying today. Nciza has created a new brand of South African music and a new brand of fashion. Both have her unmistakable stamp.

The First Lady  Of Afropop

“What would you say if I showed up barefoot and without a belt?” asks Reginald Mengi, one of the richest men in Africa, as we discuss attire for the photo shoot for his interview with FORBES AFRICA in Johannesburg, South Africa.
It could have been a great headline: Millionaire Barefoot and Beltless. Alas, he suffered cold feet and came dressed up to the nines in designer shoes with an Italian navy-blue pinstripe suit and a belt, of course.
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Walking without shoes is nothing new for the media tycoon, from Dar es Salaam, who’s worth an estimated $550 million, according to FORBES.
He’s a simple man, bound closely to his roots in the village, who enjoys plain language and has a story for everything.
Mengi grew up in Machame, near Kilimanjaro, in northern Tanzania. His parents, both farmers, owned a little plot of land where the family of eight lived in poverty.
“We lived in a mud hut with two cows, three sheep and a few chickens. Nothing more than that in terms of what my family was worth because we just couldn’t make ends meet… We couldn’t afford food and when we got two meals a day it was a great celebration.”
Mengi wanted more than two meals a day and took drastic action. In Form Five, with one year left of high school, he earned a scholarship to study corporate accounting at a college in Glasgow, Scotland.
“I couldn’t tell my headmaster that I won a scholarship to go to [Britain], halfway through Form Five, so I ran away from school.”
Everyone tried to convince him to stay, but his mind was made up. He flew from Moshi to Glasgow, via Nairobi and London. Mengi always thought the streets of London were paved with gold but when he got there he realized the truth.
“I saw a beggar in the street, a white beggar, and after that I said, ‘You know what? Even London has many things like home.”
In Scotland, it wasn’t the history, the whisky or the glimpse of the Loch Ness Monster that impressed him. It was the warmth of the people.
At college, in Glasgow, Mengi had a change of heart. He no longer wanted to become an articled clerk. He informed his sponsors who told him he had to stay in Scotland for the six months as it had been paid for.
So Mengi stayed, abandoned the course, took night classes and finished high school instead. During the day, he worked many jobs, from a bus conductor to cleaner, to make ends meet.
“I wouldn’t turn it down because it’s too dirty or the money is too little. My question is the alternative: If I work I get $1; if I don’t do it I get nothing… $1 is better than nothing.”
A year and a half later, Mengi, who had finally found his feet, received devastating news from home. His father had died. Mengi was stuck 7,000 miles away with no money to go home.
“The biggest regret I had was he passed away without me being able to show him that I’ve been able to make it in life and do something for him to say, ‘Well that’s my son.’ That I regret. I wish he had just lived on for a while for me to go back and say ‘daddy you know what, I’ve been able to do it and let me now be by your side.’ That eats me up even to today,” says Mengi as he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe away tears.
After high school, Cooper Brothers, now Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), offered Mengi a job where he completed his articles. He climbed the ranks, became a member of the institute for chartered accountants for England and Wales but he yearned for home. After nine years away, Mengi transferred to the Nairobi office. It was one of the shortest careers in history; after a few hours, he resigned.
“I wanted to be in Tanzania. I knew I could make more money in [Britain] but I wanted to be back home. I wanted to go back to do something for my people. I was educated by poor Tanzanians and I thought it would be a good thing to give back.”
After a year in Moshi, Mengi moved to PWC back home in Dar es Salaam. He worked hard and, at the age of 30, became one of the youngest partners in the corporation. At the height of his career at PWC, Mengi, who was the chairman and managing partner, resigned.
“Some people leave their jobs when things are bad; but I left mine when things were really good. I couldn’t wait until things got bad and then left. You change when things are really good and you go into the new job with a big kind of energy rather than going there totally depressed because you had been sucked [dry] or you were not doing that well.”
Mengi dreamed of running a big business but understood that he had to start small. Everywhere he looked he saw suffering in the then socialist society and shortages of almost everything. His first bright idea came on the day he went to buy a pen and couldn’t find one. He decided to become a purveyor of pens. With the help of a friend he found a pen manufacturer in Kenya who shipped the parts to start his business.
“When the components arrived I didn’t know where to put them, so the best place was my bedroom and it was in that bedroom that I started the assembly of the pens.”
It was a big change from PWC where Mengi had a large office, staff and a company house. Now he worked 16-hour days, downgraded his car from a Peugeot 504 to a Peugeot 104 and also delivered on foot.
“That little business gave me my first million dollars,” he says.
Mengi sharpened his eye for opportunity. He sold shoe polish, made from ground charcoal and oil, and a natural skin exfoliator, which was simply bottled sea mud. He was on a roll and made anything he could: toilet paper, soap, detergent, beds, shoes and toothpaste.
“At that time, I made sure that no one in Tanzania could spend a day without coming into contact or touching one of my products… the only thing I couldn’t do at that time was the air you breathe.”
It was news that brought him his greatest success. In 1994, he launched his first newspaper, The Guardian, and a year later came Tanzania’s first television network, ITV. He did it all with no journalism experience. His media ventures were formed under the IPP Group, where Mengi holds sole ownership.
“We launched five years before government TV. There was a law in Tanzania not allowing television, it was government censorship… When I came with my network it was operating, on one hand, to report as if it was national television, but on the other hand it was private television.”
Mengi now owns eight newspapers, three radio stations and three television networks and has more than 1,000 people working for him. The only time he gets worried is when the politicians are not.
“If you start being praised by politicians… then you must be careful, there must be something wrong that you are doing. To be criticized is healthy; it means you are doing your job well in the media.”
Besides his interests in media, Mengi is also involved in mining and bottling for the Coca Cola Company. In business, that set him against his friend, Mohammed Dewji – also among the richest in Africa – who is trying to take on the world’s biggest name: Coca Cola. It was a move that proved a business disaster for Richard Branson when he launched Virgin Cola.
“One thing I really think is fantastic is competition. I think it’s good for you as a business person. It’s also good for the customers. If he came to me for advice, I would advise him to move even faster because without competition you are not going to grow.”
When it comes to media in Africa, Mengi says although free speech is ideal, it comes with limits. Surprisingly, he doesn’t blame international media for the often gloomy picture the world paints of Africa.
“The images you see in the western media, many of them come from the African journalists. But African journalists should bear one thing in mind; there are two sides to a story…  If you are an African journalist and you do not see the beautiful side of Africa, you only see the bad and write negative things, then you are not being responsible.”
Among the negative stories written about Africa is corruption, both in politics and business. Mengi says the reasons people don’t speak out is they are corrupt or they are perceived to be corrupt, therefore they are scared to open their mouths and talk about corruption for the fear that they may lose contracts and contacts. Mengi is known for his tough stance on corruption. In 2005, he launched two newspapers, ThisDay and Kulikoni, aimed at shedding light on corruption – often the reason why people are poor.
“For a long time we’ve been saying Africa is poor but that’s wrong. Africa as a continent is not poor; it’s the people who are poor. Instead of saying Africa is poor we should open our eyes that Africa as a continent is very rich, but of course, people are poor.”
Mengi speaks of countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo that have an estimated $24 trillion worth of untapped minerals. To him, it doesn’t make sense that a country so rich should be seeking help.
“Africans are selling themselves too cheaply. When we encounter foreign investors you talk of a gold mine. We think this deal is $1 million, they believe its $100 million. Do you think they are going to say ‘why not make it $50 million or even $100 million?’… They capitalize on our ignorance.”
He says Africans need to find ways to exploit the resources of the land to make money. In Tanzania, Mengi says the booming sectors are mining, agriculture, telecoms and oil and gas.
“Right now I’m fighting to create opportunities for Tanzanians to be able to invest in oil and gas. To have a sustainable private sector you need adequate participation from local people,” he says.
When it comes to entrepreneurs in Africa, Mengi says none can hold a candle to his mother.
“My mother could take a bunch of bananas and come with a kilo of rice. My mother could take just one chicken and come back with a kilo of potatoes. My mother would carry a bunch of bananas and come back with a pair of shorts for school. That is the greatest entrepreneur I admire.”
When asked about his wealth, Mengi shies away saying it is un-Tanzanian to boast.
“A rich African cannot look at life the way a rich American or European looks at life. In the case of Africans we are surrounded by many poor people, we grew up with them. We have to know where we’ve come from. Look at the rich Africans; tell me one who didn’t come from poverty. We all came from poverty, but we have to look back to where we’ve come from. We should not forget.”
He is an advocate of philanthropy and has given money towards education, the disabled and health. Along the way he earned the strange nickname ‘The Condom King’.
“If you see someone on the roof of a house and you think ‘he’s not alright, he wants to jump down’. And by jumping down he’s going to crash and die but there is a ladder nearby. Would you take the ladder and put it there for him to come down smoothly? Or would you say ‘just jump, just jump’?” he says about the wisdom of using condoms.
“I had been advocating the use of condoms in Tanzania. I had a very big fight with the bishops in the Catholic Church. They said, ‘Mengi has a huge plant for making condoms… Mengi is in collaboration with white people, he wants to use condoms to exterminate the black race…”
On the contrary, Mengi wants to give his money to his fellow Africans before he dies. He doesn’t want to be remembered for what he had, more for what he did.
Many see Mengi as a hard worker.
“Am I working harder than the poor woman cleaning the streets in the sun? Am I working harder than someone breaking stones at a construction site?”
Mengi’s story of triumph in the face of poverty is one many can relate to. From barefoot and sharing a hut with cattle to dining in Paris, Mengi proves that anything is possible.

‘Africans Are Selling  Themselves Too Cheaply’

It takes weeks to secure an appointment with Nigeria’s high-profile Director-General of the Securities &amp; Exchange Commission (SEC). And when we do, it’s on a public holiday.
Walking into Arunma Oteh’s office in the country’s capital Abuja is like walking into a trophy store: shiny medals, mementoes, plaques and trophies take up an entire wall.
One glance is enough to convey the success of Nigeria’s tough-talking chief capital market regulator. A career she couldn’t have imagined.
As a child, Oteh wanted to be an inventor. A proud workaholic, she puts her discipline down to her sound upbringing.
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“My parents were really stern but also loving, and for my two sisters and I, the constant quest for knowledge and excellence was firmly rooted in this background. They had such a great sense of character and the courage to be different and standing up for what was right regardless of the cost. I believe they instilled this in me. My childhood is really what has made me who I am today,” says Oteh.
It was tough being the daughter of a father who had exalted expectations. Once, she ran home elated, report card in hand. She had big news.
“Dad, I did it, I came first in class!”
One look at her report, and her father said: “Great, but next time, you have to be first plus plus.”
Such was Oteh’s family. They looked down on mediocrity and believed in brilliance. Hailing from the southeastern part of Nigeria, Oteh grew up in Kano, northern Nigeria.
Oteh’s mother, a nurse, wanted her to become a medical doctor, her father, an engineer, wanted her to take on his profession. But Oteh had other interests. She recalls fondly her obsession to become an inventor. Computer science was in its infancy in the 1980s; she loved the sciences and believed she could become a pioneer. So she studied computer science.
In 1984, Oteh graduated top of her class and faculty from the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, after which she taught computer science to first year university students as part of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), a compulsory government program for Nigerian graduates.
After NYSC, she went to Lagos and was interviewed for jobs. The offers came thick and fast, and she decided to work for Centre Point, a stockbroking firm, because she admired Dennis Odife, the owner of the company and a highly respected businessman.
“I was impressed with what he had done with the company and what he had become. It was an amazing decision and defined what I ended up doing later in life. I was hired at the time to start the management information systems department but few months into that role, he thought it would be good for me to work in corporate finance. That’s how I got into finance and got really excited about it too,” says Oteh.
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Oteh’s fascination for her new found career grew and she explored the next step for growth. Her mentor, Odife, had been to the prestigious Columbia Business School in the United States. And she saw this as a must.
She started reading up about business schools and applying in her first year at Centre Point. The acceptance letters poured in. And she made it through the selection process at Harvard Business School.
“My father had always said, if you do well, you can always get what you want,” says Oteh.
Oteh worked in the United Kingdom for some time and flew to Harvard in September 1988. Here, she found herself surrounded by intelligent people and erudition.
“Business school was amazing. The case study methodology employed at Harvard also helped hone my skills in decision-making and problem-solving. This is an environment that prepares you to take on the world. I was very interested in finance. As the first Nigerian woman in the Harvard Business School MBA program, my class mates were quite wowed and thought I was a princess.”
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It all led to a career as Director-General of the SEC, a post she has held since January 2010.
This is merely one of the many hats she wears. She was also elected Chairperson of the Africa Middle East Regional Committee (AMERC) of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) in June 2010. She is a member of the Nigerian Economic Management team and serves on the board of a number of organizations including the National Pension Commission (PENCOM) and Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON).
Today, Oteh is charged with transforming the Nigerian capital markets and unlocking the country’s economic potential.
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Her appointment four years ago came at a crucial time, on the heels of the global financial crisis. Nigeria’s stock market had fallen 70% from its peak in March 2008. Investor confidence was low. There was need for change and a tough regulator.
By the time she started, Oteh already had a wealth of experience and believed she had the panacea.
Her message to the people was to save and invest wisely. To the policy makers, she preached against depending on short-term bank finance, and in favor of medium and long-term finance to fund infrastructure.
“Having that crisis helped, because people had seen what could go wrong. The environment to support a tough reform agenda was present as they could see the importance of a regulator that would do its job. When I joined, the vision was for the SEC to be the best regulator in Africa and I said, ‘best regulator in Africa?’ That’s not ambitious enough. Our aim should be to be the best regulator in the world. Nobody invests in a particular market because they love it. They are more interested in the safety and security of their funds. In that case, it is important to build a market that can stand globally acclaimed. This isn’t possible without integrity,” says Oteh.
Oteh was ready to put her money where her mouth was in an arduous revamp of the Nigerian capital markets.
It wasn’t going to be easy.
“That led us to alleging that 260 individuals and entities had carried out different forms of market abuse. The second thing was to focus on the Exchange. Nigeria had one operational exchange and being a visible symbol of our market, it was very important to ensure that we address the challenges of the Exchange because then, we develop the industry of fund and asset managers and develop the fixed income bond market to the point where it became easier for people
to borrow.”
Thanks to her efforts, today, she has the likes of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which launched a successful bond last year. She has also been able to regulate over-the-counter markets.
“We have two platforms, the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), which targets unlisted securities so there is more efficient trading in those securities or the platform sponsored by the financial market dealers association which does wholesale trading in Federal Government bonds. Also, introducing new instruments like Islamic finance products, and encouraging real estate investment trusts,” she says.
With all these feats and more under her belt, Oteh believes there is still more to do, and with careful execution, it’s only a matter of time before all her boxes are ticked.
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There have also been some dark days along the way for Oteh, as in 2012, the board of the SEC had directed her to go on compulsory leave, following a probe into the near collapse of the capital markets and allegations of misappropriation of funds and disharmony in the apex capital market regulator.
Oteh fought the system tooth and nail and went to great lengths to expose inadequacies in the structure, accusing the Chairman of the House of Representatives of the Nigerian capital market of corruption and unaccountability in a heated exchange at the public inquiry.
Following a two-month suspension, Oteh was cleared of all allegations and went back to her job as Director-General.
“I was angry that a system that is so well-endowed was being managed irresponsibly. I had also built a longstanding career and reputation over 22 years anchored on excellence. I knew there would be risks attached to fighting back and that I would be misunderstood but I also felt that standing up for what was right, far outweighed any costs attached for me. If I didn’t do it, who would?” she told FORBES WOMAN AFRICA.
Prior to her appointment at the SEC, Oteh was Vice President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), and was at the forefront of internal reforms that scaled up the bank’s response to Africa’s development challenges.
She had also served as the bank’s Group Treasurer for five years, managing a portfolio of assets and liabilities worth billions of dollars. In her years at AfDB, she restored its ‘AAA’ rating by Standard &amp; Poor’s.
“Some of my most fascinating experiences were that people were just so excited to hear about Africa – there was such a curiosity about the continent. At the time, AfDB was a ‘AAA’-rated institution and we would go to sell AfDB bonds in Japan. People were relatively familiar with why we were so highly rated. So, most people felt very comfortable with the credit when you sold bonds – they knew there was no risk,” she says.
Oteh had also started the Euro currency programmes while at AfDB.
This great adventure with AfDB began post-Harvard, following a year’s project with the Harvard Institute for International Development assessing the competitiveness of manufacturing in West Africa. She had interviewed at AfDB where she got hired into the West and North Africa portfolios in 1992. She covered Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana and Sudan, traveling in these countries.
After being away from her home country for 22 years, Oteh, a proud patriot, believes there is no place like Nigeria. She is highly optimistic.
“There are no countries that have taken the bold steps we have in the financial sector in the last few years,” she says.
As her current term draws to an end in January 2015 – and that’s also when she will be turning 50 – Oteh and her team, are working tirelessly still, raising the bar and repositioning the face of the Nigerian capital market globally. It is yet to achieve demutualization and this is a direction the institution would like to steer towards.
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Oteh is also passionate about mentoring young girls, and advocacy. She holds a strong view on women’s place in society, drawing attention to the low number of women in key positions and boards.
“Equal opportunities should exist in the work place. A meritocracy where the best suited and qualified individual gets the job is also as vital.”
She also believes in a great support system and that young women should have self-belief.
“Successful leaders should pave the way for younger women to climb the corporate ladder through mentorship and coaching,” she says.
On career and family, Oteh, who acknowledges devoting her life to career, says she wouldn’t do it differently.
They call her the ‘Iron Lady’ for her tough decision-making.
“If leading change, being passionate, resilient and decisive about a great course is what makes me an iron lady, then I proudly raise my hand up high to that tag,” says Oteh.
She has come a long way from Kano. Oteh is not telling us what her plans are post her current assignment, but we are sure to hear more about her in the news.

From College Princess  To Queen  Of The Markets

He is the maverick entrepreneur in the hat – who has worn many hats: the precocious kid; the investment mover and shaker, the banking wizard. Whenever you see Atedo Peterside in his flowing robes in the heat of a Lagos afternoon – you know a big deal is cooking.
Right now, wherever Peterside lays his hat, that’s his home. His diary shuttles him between Lagos and Abuja; he is on the board of six listed companies; he is chairman of the National Council on Privatisation’s technical committee and runs his own foundation on good governance. On top of this, Peterside is behind many of the biggest investment deals in Nigeria.
We talk at his Victoria Island penthouse, full of art and family portraits. This is Peterside’s quiet haven, away from work and his other passion, polo – a sport he has played for more than two decades with a current +1 handicap. He has a string of fine polo ponies.
Peterside is in the news these days for reasons other than maverick business and polo, but he is quick to clear up that he is no political aspirant – merely a devotee of the greater good; a philosophy born of years of sweat and risk in the dynamic Nigerian banking sector.
At 33 years old, a little older than he would have liked, Peterside became the youngest bank CEO in Nigeria, when he founded the Investment Banking and Trust Company (IBTC Bank) in Lagos.
“Because I was young, people were quite nervous about a bank being run by a ‘kid’, businesses wouldn’t take you seriously. So, I invited some other shareholders who would join the board to create the understanding that it was a mature decision,” says Peterside.
He ran IBTC Chartered Bank for 18 years. Now he is Non-executive Chairman for Stanbic-IBTC, following a merger with South Africa’s Standard Bank Group Nigeria operation – Stanbic Bank Nigeria.
It was the fruit of a merger, in 2007, Nigeria’s first ever tender offer. A foreign direct investment of $525 million took place and Stanbic IBTC was born.
“The most difficult problems I faced as CEO were self-imposed – when I started IBTC, I made a personal decision not to cut corners. I made a resolve to never get involved in any form of corrupt transactions and practices. I had a strong personal commitment to integrity and good ethics. We were going to be above board. I never wanted anyone to say ‘This guy built a bank but they are a bunch of crooks’. While it was very difficult for many to operate this way, for me it was quite easy as I was bent on creating a quality and reputable institution that will stand through time.”
In 2005, following a directive by the Central Bank of Nigeria on conversion to universal banking – a system that allows a bank to engage in all aspects of banking under a single license, Peterside’s IBTC was the only pure investment bank left at the time. There was an eventual compliance and a ripple effect &#8211; out of this came IBTC Chartered Bank.
“Acquiring two small retail banks took us out of pure investment banking into universal banking which was never my strength as I was an investment banker through and through.
“But even before we got to that point, I knew that it was time to move all the way to a different type of institution. In effect, if we were going to have a universal bank, I thought we could team up with an international bank. I was happy with IBTC as a well-connected domestic investment bank and we could have kept that model going for many years but there were new requirements that came with the change that affected the tight control unit that had existed previously &#8211; I thought, I might as well go all the way and started exploring the direction of a merger with an international bank. Stanbic was the obvious choice. They also had the need to expand their footprint in Nigeria.
“Simultaneously, I divested substantially and reduced my percentage shareholding and also sold some shares to Standard Bank – that too, was deliberate. I was not comfortable leaving too large a chunk of my personal net worth in one institution as I was already seeing signs of vulnerability. I didn’t want anything to get in the way and preferred to have my net worth spread over regulated businesses. Also, events of 2005 showed me that in a heavily regulated system like banking, the regulator can destroy your business overnight with the wrong decision and sometimes you are only as safe and secure as your regulator allows you.”
This is all part of a career, born of foresight in his days at the London School of Economics, where he earned a master’s degree and steeled himself for the world.
“At that time, I was one of the people who were bent on returning to Nigeria – I never contemplated staying a few more months after my education. I was back in Nigeria within two weeks of receiving my master’s degree. In reality, I got a sense, even at my age of 21, that Nigeria would go places very soon and I thought by staying in London to search for a job I’d be missing out on the great things that would happen back home,” he says.
“Oil had just been found in large quantities and I thought my country was going through a very important phase. The civil war had ended in 1970; I was to return home in 1977. So, I thought that was Nigeria’s now moment and I didn’t want to miss it. I wouldn’t say I was phenomenally patriotic, I just felt Nigeria was a place where the sky was the limit. I identified with every single thing that was happening and I felt I could move mountains here &#8211; I could have an impact.”
On his return, Peterside was clear; he wanted to be an entrepreneur and chose the field of finance because he felt he could do well. First, there was compulsory time to be worked for the government in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Peterside didn’t want to waste time and requested to be posted to an investment bank.
“I was told the investment banks were not registered with the NYSC scheme and my next best bet was a commercial bank. After spending about six months there, I met the CEO of NAL Merchant Bank, who registered with the NYSC scheme, so I could join their team after I expressed my initial interest. I finished my NYSC at NAL Merchant Bank and stayed on after my service. I worked with this bank for 10 straight years – after which I left to start my own bank,” he says.
“I was heavily exposed while at NAL Merchant Bank. I had a lot to do. I did not complain because I was learning. People wondered why I had been given so many responsibilities but I believe it was a mutually beneficial situation for the CEO as well. He had a lot of confidence in me and he threw a lot at me.”
Like a man on a mission, Peterside studied the system, identified loopholes and carved out a niche. The genesis of his own bank proved a problem. The qualification to be a bank CEO, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria, was at least 10 years’ experience.
“I was bent on becoming a bank entrepreneur in Nigeria, because I felt that the existing investment banks at that time were not very good. So, I was in a hurry to set my own bank up and take them on,” he says.
After 10 years of work, in 1989, license in hand, Peterside gathered young professionals and older heads to found the top investment banking institution in Nigeria.
“I was also lucky in another area – the minimum capital requirement to start an investment bank at the time was quite low. It was therefore within my capacity as I was able to muster some savings, own about 20 percent of the bank and invite others to own the rest of it. I saw a window and I didn’t know how long it would remain open for – I had to grab the opportunity while it existed. Also, when I began, the requirement was a minimum of 10 years’ experience. Several years later, the requirement became 20 years’ experience. Today, it has become 15 years. So, there was an element of good fortune in my case,” says Peterside.
Through it all, a sprinkle of luck and a mean hand played by Peterside won through. This was pure Peterside, a calculating player, who split his life into three segments.
“The first 25 years for me, was to get educated, the next 25 was to be productive, gain financial independence and be well invested. The next stage is to start investing my energy into giving back to society, see how to improve the country – I have that time now.”
It is a belief born in childhood, he says. Peterside grew up, one of three children, in Lagos and Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He recalls a strong parental influence.
“I think I almost grew up with the message that: Yes, you must do well and be successful but that also came with a contract that says if you achieve all of this, promise to devote some of your time to the greater good of society. So, I’ve always taken this to be a duty.”
One of Peterside’s big duties, right now, is overseeing the privatization of Nigeria’s parlous power generation. The country has a mere few thousand megawatts to share between more than 160 million people. He is the chairman of the technical committee of the Nigerian Council on Privatisation. With the privatization of the Nigerian power sector being one of the biggest issues on the continent, Peterside and his team have their work cut out.
“One thing we must remember is that Nigeria’s power sector was neglected for decades in terms of the priority given to it by government. We were at rock bottom. A number of us believed that the way forward was to launch a power sector reform program that was driven at the heart by privatization. We did all that and actually went out to advertise transparently, got prospective asset owners to compete transparently and it is fair to say that the entire transaction was hitch-free,” he says.
“If we had made a decision to sell the entire power sector to one individual, I’m very sure there would have been no takers. The activity is just too complex, not to mention the staggering financial requirement.”
Many Nigerians expect the lights to switch on overnight. Peterside warns that is not going to happen and there are also issues around the reform of gas supply. Most of the country’s power generation relies on gas, which suffers from unreliable supply.
“People also have a right to be angry, however, and they have a right to demand accountability but it will not happen overnight. We should expect to start seeing improvements within six to 12 months and, for as long as these improvements continue, then we are getting somewhere,” he says.
Peterside says he is now semi-retired and has closed the CEO chapter in favor of striking out on a new path. Seven years ago, he founded the ANAP foundation.  The foundation name, also his nickname, is based on the initials for Atedo Nari Atowari Peterside. It is a non-profit organization fostering good governance.
“I’m convinced that my purpose is to be able to influence those in political office in the right direction and I think that’s a full time job on its own. I believe this is something I can do effectively too,” he says.
“I have no interest in holding political office itself – I don’t think that was ever my purpose. I’m more gifted with being able to influence their decisions in moving the country forward. My focus is on projects that will bring good to the greater society and not individuals – we are trying to impact lives.”
Apart from banking, Peterside has invested in aviation and property.
He is inspired by people like Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize winning economist and prophet of the free market, Lee Kuan Yew, the former Prime Minister of Singapore and Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric.
With a good polo pony collection, ranch and boat,  Peterside enjoys himself and time with a close knit family. On the future of Nigerian financial institutions, Peterside is optimistic.
“We must remember that the Nigerian banking sector was dominated by Nigerian institutions. It was important to allow Nigerians to form banks if one wanted the sector to develop. Stopping people from trying was going to be counter-productive and Nigeria was right for allowing some of us to give it a try,” says Peterside.
“When there is a lot of stumbling and falling however, it is also right to take them out – there should be no room for sentiment. It is dangerous to allow failing institutions to remain in business in finance and banking. Ultimately, we are well on our way to having a mature banking industry and the only way we can get there is by making and learning from our mistakes.”
Peterside believes all entrepreneurs should surround themselves with good people. Good staff, good board members and good business partners.
“I always remind people that everyone does not have a divine right to get to the top. By definition, only a handful will get there. When you forget that you are likely to fail through a combination of arrogance, lack of humility and/or poor homework,” he says on why some entrepreneurs fail.
As Nigerian banks move forward in the 21st century, they should tip their hats to the maverick who is rarely seen without his.

Why Entrepreneurs Fail

Nestled on a ridge overlooking the sea to the left and Durban’s beachfront to the right, with Moses Mabhida Stadium on the horizon, is the view from the balcony of a multimillionaire. Michael Attridge is one of the guiding spirits of one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies.
His stride is that of a man who knows where he is going in life. The handshake is firm but welcoming and his warm smile reassures you that Durban may be hot, humid and sticky but it’s a fun place to live.
Attridge, who’s been called Gus since his school days, is a charted accountant by training and the deputy group chief executive of Aspen Pharmacare, a R125-billion ($11.8 billion) company as of the beginning of April according to Reuters, listed on Africa’s biggest bourse, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. If you bought $10,000 worth of shares, valued at R2,36 in 1998, what would it be worth now?
Attridge is one of four founding shareholders who built this business in their backyard in Durban.
It all began in an old Victorian house, converted into offices, near Greyville racecourse in 1997.
“It was in a rather less fashionable part of Durban, at that time this was sugar cane,” says Attridge, referring to their current offices in La Lucia.
Attridge made his debut on FORBES’ list of Africa’s richest in 2013, coming in at number 37, with an estimated net worth of $525 million. A listing he says he didn’t know about and would rather be without.
The debut was down to Aspen’s stock shooting up nearly 75% in 2012/2013 thanks to its booming business in Asia and Australia, says chief executive, Stephen Saad. Attridge is the second biggest individual shareholder, owning a 4% slice, with co-founder, Saad, who is also on the FORBES list with a net worth of $1.5 billion.
How two friends from Durban came to be worth $2 billion is an African story worth telling.
In 1981, Attridge completed a bachelor of commerce degree from the University of Natal [now University of KwaZulu-Natal] in Durban. He added a diploma in accounting, a year later, followed by another in datametrics before his training with Coopers &amp; Lybrand, now PricewaterhouseCoopers. This is where he met Saad. They worked together on assignments; Attridge was Saad’s senior, who was to climb the ladder at Coopers &amp; Lybrand to become a manager in the corporate finance division in London.
“I’d always set my objectives on becoming a partner in one of the firms. That was kind of my pinnacle as a trainee in the accounting profession,” says Attridge.
Just before the end of apartheid, he returned to South Africa to establish a corporate finance division in the Durban office of Coopers &amp; Lybrand.
During that time, Saad left the company, leaving Attridge behind, suffering from the entrepreneurial itch. But Saad returned. Not to the company, but to Attridge, whom he approached with a lucrative business idea.
“The day he [Saad] could first get out of there, he got out of there. I initially had some career ambition there. But I quickly realized that selling time was not very entrepreneurial and it was difficult to get rewarded effectively for your efforts when you were selling time because it did not measure what value you added to things. I was eager to find an opportunity in business,” says Attridge.
Saad and Attridge put their heads and money together.
“And that’s where my business partnership with Saad began, probably 20 odd years ago,” says Attridge.
He left his job at Coopers &amp; Lybrand in 1994, the year South Africa held its first democratic elections. Their first venture was to buy Varsity College, a struggling private tertiary institution, for R1.5 million ($142,000) and to apply a fresh idea.
“We embarked on quite a differentiated, let’s call it, advertising campaign where essentially we guaranteed students who attended all their lectures and did all their assignments that we would give them their tuition fees free the next year if they failed under those circumstances.”
“It was all built around adverts that went into the press which were around the F-word. It was F***, being fail, but it provoked some reaction generally as well because it was a bit provocative I suppose,” he says.
Few students fell foul of the F-word.
“In a student’s DNA, to go to all lectures is foreign. But really, with that diligence required to attend all lectures and to submit all your assignments and so on, you will pass. Unless you chose a course incompatible with your skills set,” Attridge says.
He and Saad also bought a private primary and secondary institution, Crawford College, one of which is opposite their head offices in this suburb of La Lucia in Durban. It worked. The partners turned the losses of Varsity College and sold it in 1996 for R10 million ($948,000).
This paved the way for another adventure.
“We’re not people with 10-year plans. We don’t even have a three-year plan. It’s a good thing we haven’t because we would have never stuck with any of those plans because we move too quickly, things change quickly,” says Attridge.
Three years into the pharmaceuticals business, Aspen took a big risk. It was a highly leveraged hostile takeover of South Africa’s oldest pharmaceutical business, South African Druggist (SAD), for R2.4 billion ($227.5 million).
“That changed our business forever and changed our business model,” says Attridge.
SAD worked in a number of areas, including the development, production and marketing of pharmaceuticals, within South Africa.
Aspen’s initial business plan was to avoid manufacturing. Its plan was to be a small business selling good margin products to build its name.
The takeover wasn’t going to be easy.
At the time, Fedsure owned 34.9% of SAD, but its attempt to buy the remainder of the company and then sell Pharmacare to Adcock Ingram was opposed by the South African Competition Board. Pharmacare was the main pharmaceutical unit of SAD.
“I remember I was driving from work and I was listening to a business program and I heard this deal had been cancelled or disallowed. I walked in the house, picked up the phone to Steve and I said, ‘you know a lot more about the history of SAD, you know their products well but I’ve just heard that this is cancelled, this deal is not going ahead,’” recalls Attridge.
It got even more complicated.
There were other companies involved in the acquisition. A business called Macmed Health Care initially did the running to buy SAD. They specialized in medical devises rather than pharmaceuticals. They had an agreement with Aspen to divide up SAD in a way that would allow other players, who wanted other parts, to enter into a consortium.
“We had to put up guarantees. It was a hostile arrangement. Management at SAD had their own ideas about acquiring the business for their own benefit. So there were a whole lot of different issues going down. We weren’t allowed to do due diligence,” says Attridge.
Luckily for them, SAD was a public company and Saad had a good knowledge of the product. Financing the deal was a problem but they were helped by property entrepreneur Jonathan Beare, who relished backing small businesses like Aspen. Beare introduced Attridge and Saad to Investec’s chief executive, Stephen Koseff. The two businessmen put up money and Aspen led the deal.
“We didn’t think we were going to buy the whole pharmaceutical business. I don’t know whether its fate or what, but we got it.”
With the deal done, the business grew to a $11.8-billion global corporation with Saad as the chief executive and Attridge the deputy.
The irony of this story was that Aspen were the new kids on the block but survived and prospered. Within 18 months of the transaction, Macmed went bust, about three years later, Fedsure followed.
“So we were the only ones from that consortium that survived and we were the small kids on the block. Those kind of things were instrumental in some of our thinking we try and impart on our staff. We now have a lot of management teams trying to impart on our people that you can never be complacent because you could be succeeding today, because both Fedsure and Macmed were highly rated at the time,” says Attridge.
“You should never be arrogant about your success, because success can be fleeting. You never know how the wheel is going to turn and who’s actually going to need who in the future. I do hope that our people [Aspen staff] understand that. When you’ve lived through and seen what happened to the management team with those businesses and so on, it’s actually very insightful because they all thought they were bulletproof.”
However, a business with a staff of 200 taking over a firm of around 3,000 was no mean feat. One newspaper called it a mouse trying to eat an elephant.
This little company had to get the buy-in from the staff at SAD. They had a small management team that was now going to manage SAD. It all played out at their old Victorian house turned into an office.
“The company which we still own today, Pharmacare Limited, was a company within the SAD label that housed the pharmaceutical business and we invited the chief executive of that business, Kobus Nel, to come to Durban and to meet us and talk about our plans and strategies and get to know him a little better. I think he took one look at that house and the day after he handed in his resignation,” laughs Attridge.
“I think he thought no, look at me sitting in this office park with a view of Johannesburg with a golf course and these guys are sitting here looking into the backyard of someone with a washing line.”
Today, Aspen supplies medicine to more than 150 countries, manufactured in 16 sites in: Kenya; Tanzania; Australia; Mexico; Brazil; Germany; South Africa; the Netherlands and the United States (US), with a French-based site becoming effective in May. It is the largest manufacturer of generic medicines in the southern hemisphere. Aspen is the first company on the continent to launch a generic anti-retroviral for the treatment of HIV and AIDS patients, thus becoming the largest supplier.
On the continent, Aspen has long-term plans for sub-Saharan Africa. Their challenge lies in its fragmented countries but they’re working on it.
“It’s not a big part of our business today but I think the investment in those difficult markets will pay back in time,” says Attridge.
In East Africa, Aspen bought 60% of Shelys, which has businesses in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. He says they hope to move away from the tender business into more of a business focused on brands.
They’ve also consolidated some of the manufacturing in East Africa, supported by the South African business, which Attridge hopes will help it to have its best year this year.
The business opened Aspen Nigeria last year. This is a collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a British multinational pharmaceutical company, where they share products and everything else, which has resulted in a strong business in Nigeria that is exceeding expectations.
“We’ve managed to get better market penetration than we thought we’d be able to, early on. It’s very small; it’s not going to influence anyone’s thinking on Aspen today. Everything has to start small. We know that very well at Aspen because we started small,” he says.
And that is how their Australian business grew. They started out with just two employees, but today it is one of their biggest revenue streams. Aspen aims to perform ahead of the market in Australia.
“We’re one of the top players in Australia now. The Australian business is getting to a certain stage of maturity. And the Australian market is challenging at the moment. It has had a series of price cuts which has taken a lot of profits off the table,” says Attridge.
Aspen has an agreement with Nestle that is helping the business ease into Australia. They plan to cut costs of goods through migrating product manufacturers from Australia back to South Africa and Asia.
“There is a big consolidation of manufacturing already well progressed and it continues well into Australia. When we bought the Sigma Pharmaceuticals unit, it had five manufacturing facilities and our target is to end up with one. We’ve got three at the moment,” he adds.
Aspen is Australia’s eighth largest pharmaceutical company by scripts generated. Following its October acquisition of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) manufacturing sites in the Netherlands and the US.
Aspen is ranked the ninth largest generic pharmaceutical producer out of 60 generic companies in the world by EvaluatePharma in 2013. It employs around 8,200 people.
But their success comes with problems they have no control over. The beginning of the year saw South Africa’s currency weakening steadily against the dollar, straining Aspen’s South African business.
But because Aspen has become diversified, its money comes in different currencies.
“The rand denomination results have a lot of protection against the weakness of the rand as a group,” says Attridge.
In January, Aspen Global, a subsidiary of Aspen Holdings, acquired the brands and business worldwide of Arixtra and FRaxiparine/Fraxodi, except in China, Pakistan and India, from GSK. As of May, Aspen Holdings will have acquired a specialized sterile production site that manufacturers the brands in France, a total consideration for the acquisition made through its subsidiary at an estimated R9.79 billion ($929 million).
Aspen has an expanding presence in Latin America and South East Asia. Their expansion plans will stretch as far as Russia and the former Soviet Republic, as well as to Central and Eastern Europe.
Attridge attests that though it’s going well, they’ve had some tricky times when they started out in Latin America. Their aim is to create a business model structured for success, similar to Varsity College’s plan.
“Varsity College was about getting an overhead base and would be covered by the revenues and we take the same approach in every business that we look at, that we have to make sure it’s a business model that’s sustainable,” he says.
They changed the business from one that relied on tenders to one based on brand equity.
“We restructured the business and got rid of some of the manufacturing which was not core to what we wanted to do… We’ve had a lot of challenges with management in Latin America. But in Brazil, we got that right a couple of years ago. It’s really doing well. It’s got a good foundation there.”
Brazil has been Aspen’s biggest part of the business in Latin America but the Spanish region of Latin America will soon overtake Brazil.
Spanish Latin America is a region where Aspen has struggled because they only had operations in Mexico and Venezuela. However, in the last 12 months or so, Aspen made a transaction with Nestle to acquire the infant milk business they bought from Pfizer; increasing their product portfolio offering. This has helped Aspen make inroads into Columbia, Chile, Argentina, Peru and Costa Rica.
Attridge hopes that the Latin American business will be as big as South Africa’s in the near future. Before that happens, they need to decrease debt from the latest acquisitions in Latin America.
This will be done through their cash flow from the business. Attridge says they’d rather use debt to build their business.
“We don’t see having money in the bank as a productive use of funds. If you’ve got money in the bank, you better have a very good investment plan and or you should give it to your shareholders. You shouldn’t be sitting with it in a government bank account,” says Attridge.
He believes the business model must produce a good return of cash. Aspen has also avoided giving equity as it is the most expensive way of raising funds.
“We’ve developed that model in all our businesses, so the profits from our business flow through to the business and to cash very efficiently. And most years our cash flow per share have exceeded our earnings per share before investments. But that’s a very important fundamental.”
Aspen made its way into Russia in January, with around 80 employees on the ground, promoting products acquired from GSK and Merck Sharp &amp; Dohme (MSD) SA.
“One of the philosophies we have is that the more challenging the market, the greater the opportunities that may exist. So Russia has been on our radar for some time as a potential investment area, a market with good growth fundamentals and evolving health sector. But it’s not the easiest market to operate in. If you can succeed in difficult markets, then you can succeed in any market and sometimes in the difficult markets you don’t actually have as much competition as you do in markets where it’s easy to operate in. People are scared of the circumstances,” says Attridge.
In Russia, Aspen will compete with a lot of local businesses who will defend their space and territory from the South African company. Attridge says Aspen is competing with a lot of products not as regulated as theirs.
“It’s not unique to Russia, but being able to access the distribution networks into the pharmacies is critical, so establishing and building on the relationships with the people (wholesalers) who are taking the products… they dictate a lot of what can be achieved. You can’t reach Russia on your own,” says Attridge.
But he says these are challenges they’re willing to take head on. He believes good leadership in other regions is one of the factors to their success of running Aspen from their modest offices in Durban.
“You’ve got to have the right people leading your businesses. We stumbled on that initially in America. We didn’t have the right leadership in place there. We inherited some that weren’t aligned with what we were trying to achieve.”
Besides challenges, the group hopes to enter into the two biggest markets by population, China and the United States (US), as well as making an entry into the Japanese market.
“That’s not to say we are going to rush in tomorrow. We now have a small portfolio in the US and one or two products in China.”
A family man, this father of two doesn’t take work home. He says with all the traveling, he makes sure that when he is home he spends it with his two sons and his wife. This 53-year-old, who celebrates his birthday this month, is a former rugby player, who played for the Kwa-Zulu Natal provincial under-20 team in 1981. He is also a cyclist, like his partner Saad, having taken part in the Argus and Amashova races.
He’s also an accountant who’s not afraid to take risks and this has made him rich.

How A Mouse  Ate An Elephant

It’s a feat getting three powerful women in the same room, at the same table, on a Monday morning. Louisa Mojela, Gloria Serobe and Wendy Luhabe make it seem everyday. They are hard-hitting businesswomen. Yet five minutes into the pleasantries, you get a different feel as you repeatedly hear the words ‘trust’ and ‘happy’.
Trust is what built their company, and happy is the attitude they sport, the clothes they wear and what they call their two-storied, artfully-appointed office in Johannesburg’s leafy Houghton suburb.
“It’s the happy house,” says Mojela, Group CEO and co-founder of WIPHOLD (Women Investment Portfolio Holdings), one of South Africa’s best-known first generation empowerment companies owned and led by women.
True to Mojela’s word, a visit to WIPHOLD House, and random conversations with smiling staff, from the secretary to the finance manager, reveals a camaraderie that appears not prompted, not effected. But this corporate haven has been built on the back of 20 years of trials, tribulations – and triumph.
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In its 20th year, WIPHOLD has a net asset value of more than $200 million; and this says a lot about a company that started with seed capital of $100,000 at a time when BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) was a little-known acronym.
At its core is a women’s empowerment model that has given financial power to grassroots black South African women from across the spectrum in Nelson Mandela’s Rainbow Nation. It’s a model that has stood the test of time, and the truth is, is still going strong, run by two of the four founders.
Today, WIPHOLD is 55% black owned, run with an all-female board, and as the first BEE company to establish permanent broad-based shareholding, has more than 1,200 direct and 18,000 indirect women beneficiaries through the WIPHOLD Investment Trust, more than 250,000 indirect women beneficiaries through the WIPHOLD NGO Trust, and is represented across South Africa. These days, it is also an operating company with interests in financial services, cement and coal.
But behind the WIPHOLD success is a story of grit, gumption and tireless tenacity. It is the story of four women, called the ‘Wip Four’ by the press in the early days, who founded a company weeks before a free South Africa was emerging from the dark shadows of apartheid.
Apart from Mojela, Luhabe and Serobe, the fourth founder, Nomhle Canca, is no longer associated with WIPHOLD, she left in 2002, but has fond memories of those early days (see box).
Luhabe, a thought-leader and mentor listed by FORBES as one of the most powerful women in African private equity, says their vision worked from the beginning because it was not about them.
“It was a vision to serve, to pioneer something that had not been done before, and because of that, it took us almost two years to get to a point we felt we had a sustainable business model. WIPHOLD’s vision is powerful because we didn’t rush into it,” she says.
“We wanted to build an institution that survives long after us. It also meant for a while we were the ones to add features to the baby,” says Serobe, CEO of Wipcapital and one of the two cofounders running WIPHOLD today.
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How they did it
WIPHOLD was formed in 1994, but the deliberations had started a year before, when it was apparent South Africa was on the cusp of a new world, one that would bring black South Africans into the mainstream. History was about to be made, and the ‘Wip Four’ wanted to spearhead it.
The epiphany came at a workshop in Johannesburg aimed at telling black business about the new opportunities opening up.
“That workshop was full of men,” says Mojela. Along with Serobe, Mojela was already working at the time at Standard Corporate &amp; Merchant Bank (SCMB) in Johannesburg, while Luhabe was an accomplished entrepreneur running her own company Bridging The Gap, which equipped black graduates with corporate skills.
And so it came to pass that in Luhabe’s small office in Melville in Johannesburg, the four met every Tuesday evening for 18 months, brainstorming over endless cups of tea, snacks and mangoes (when in season). Their vision took shape on the drawing board, slowly but surely.
At the heart of this vision were women from South Africa’s small towns and villages. Real women who were not numbers, but had names, jobs and who poured their sweat, blood and tears into their savings.
The vision was based on a simple premise: that these women would be given the opportunity to invest in South Africa’s biggest companies. So far, they knew only about savings, now they would learn about investments. “The enabling vision was created to give them a sense of ownership and empowerment at the same time, which is quite unique,” says Luhabe.
It is to WIPHOLD’s credit that for the last 20 years, it has been able to pay its shareholders dividends.
“Again, [we have been] very different from most empowerment models where only a few benefit. Our shareholders will confirm they have had benefits out of their investments,” says Luhabe.
David Shapiro, a Johannesburg-based investment expert and Director of Sasfin Securities, says WIPHOLD had an advantage as they had a head start.
“They started 20 years ago and stuck to it. They went through ups and downs but were fortunate. As early entrants, it allowed them to do prime deals. They are well-connected and highly competent ladies.”
The story of WIPHOLD cannot be told without harking back to the nineties, when the company reached its zenith. It was not easy doing business in a new South Africa.
“We underestimated the uphill [task] until we were in it. There was a big mountain to climb, and we had to break it down. Whether it was about meeting chauvinist or racist men, we knew this was the world we were getting into and we had to adapt with a lot of pain. The challenges were just too layered,” says Serobe.
Did the black brotherhood help? “One of our biggest challenges was our very own black brothers,” says Mojela. “We all came from historic disenfranchisement, and it was clear they were going to move ahead looking for these opportunities for themselves. But we thought, ‘we are big girls, we will hold our own hands; after all there was the four of us’.”
The rapport between the four didn’t happen overnight. It was built on a common vision. Mojela calls it the “glue” that bound them.
“The BEE was just an appendix for many of our male counterparts. For us, it is the reason for being,” says Mojela.
The first task was to come up with seed capital of $100,000. Each of the four founders had to chip in. Serobe was the first – helped by her young brother-in-law. Mojela was the last, taking three months to source funds from friends and family. “Credit to my partners [who waited],” she says.
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What ensued was two years of slog, covering South Africa’s nine provinces with roadshows, convincing the women it was time they took responsibility for their finances, and shift from savings to investment.
One of the first workshops was at the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg. They told the women, although they were providers of labor and consumers of goods and services, they had no part in wealth creation.
“Our strength was in numbers. The minute we decided to use women in the plural, it was only befitting we went out and galvanized them,” says Mojela.
“We had to convince them what we were doing had integrity and their hard-earned monies were not going to be misused. We also had to convince the business community we knew what we were doing,” says Luhabe.
Skepticism also came from the corridors of power. “We had no political credentials. People asked, ‘who are you?’” says Mojela.
So they looked towards the private sector for counsel.
Although Mojela, Serobe and Canca came from the banking industry, they were venturing into a sector they knew little about. They looked to the few who bought into their vision. One such was Geoff Snelgar, who they call their ‘godfather’. He offered them his boardroom on 66 Marshall Street.
In 1995, Snelgar formed Baobab Solid Growth, a listed entity with a market cap of R30 million (approx. $8 million at the time) that would incorporate black shareholders. Snelgar met with a number of potential empowerment shareholders, including Mojela and Canca, when they shared their vision.
“I thought it was a fantastic vision and, just as importantly, I really liked these people and their story. We agreed I would reserve a 10% shareholding in Baobab until the ladies could afford to pay for it. It was a verbal arrangement, promised completely on trust. Where most empowerment men I spoke to were hesitant, the ladies were the only ones who said ‘Yes, we want in. Let’s do it’. Who would’ve thought such an ordinary downtown meeting would pave the way for such a tremendous profit?” says Snelgar, now Chairman of Capricorn Capital Partners UK Limited, in the recently-released book commemorating WIPHOLD’s 20 years.
Baobab’s share price kept rising, and its market cap went to R3.5 billion (approx. $574 million) over four years. Baobab eventually became Theta, which later became African Bank Investments.
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“If I could pinpoint one thing that impressed me most about WIPHOLD, it’s their integrity. A huge number of companies were set up under the auspices of broad-based economic empowerment – but were in actual fact a front for siphoning profit to a select few. WIPHOLD faced that choice many times. I remember the girls complaining about the lucrative opportunities they were missing out on. But they stuck to a vision that ensured their women beneficiaries were top priority,” says Snelgar.
“We have had to trade off certain things and let go of opportunities to make this work. We would have been billionaires as we speak if we hadn’t taken this route,” says Serobe. “We are both commercial and social, that’s why we are not billionaires,” adds Mojela.
Even as the ‘Wip Four’ were garnering female shareholders at the roadshows, they had to put something tangible on the table, and that was a portfolio of investments to the tune of R39 million (approx. $8.66 million) in 1997. The plan was a public offer for women only. This led to the creation of the foundation of WIPHOLD – the WIPHOLD Investment Trust.
“For every woman who subscribed in WIPHOLD in 1997, when we did the IPO, it fit that we created an investment trust they could participate in at no cost to them,” says Mojela.
The women were allocated units in the trust equating the number of shares they subscribed to in WIPHOLD. Mojela says it was important to form the trust as the custodian of the WIPHOLD vision with superior voting powers to WIPHOLD, just in case there came a point in the future when the company’s empowerment values were threatened.
The day the IPO opened is one none of the four founders will forget, as it was full of emotion and color.
“It was a very interesting day,” says Mojela. Cheques poured in from women from across the country, men called on behalf of their wives and daughters, and women from all walks of life, from madams to maids, streamed to their office in downtown Johannesburg holding affidavits., wanting to sign up. The two years of galvanizing them were finally paying off. In the end, it raised R25 million ($5 million).
“This was historic. Women had never raised that amount in the country. None of the BEE companies in existence then had. We were able to do that because we had prepared the ground in the first two years. The women were ready with their savings and wanted to participate,” says Luhabe.
And that was not all.
Next step was making the most of the opportunities.
“We needed R500 million (approx. $100 million) to take the company forward. There was an investment opportunity that required R250 million ($50 million) in 1998 so we went back to our shareholders with a ‘rights offer’. We knew it was going to be uphill, but the surprise was that in 12 months, these women were able to put R76 million ($12 million) on the table,” says Mojela. The remainder was privately placed with institutions.
With expansion and more investments came the challenge of adhering to the company’s original vision. “Institutions come with big cheques and big demands. Up until then, the company was 100% women, and now, we were diluted significantly,” says Mojela.
What entailed was a painful transition.
The institutions wanted liquidity. So WIPHOLD became the first women-only empowerment company to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in March, 1999. The net asset value of the company then was a whopping R1 billion ($162 million).
Making new ground
Up until then, WIPHOLD had been an investment portfolio company, so the founders decided to embark on financial services, an industry they knew on account of their backgrounds in finance. They took this strategy to the shareholders, who signed off.
“But as we implemented it, hell broke loose,” says Serobe.
The shareholders felt this was competition.
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“We were going to do things they did. They assumed we were miserable women who wouldn’t attempt anything more serious than micro-lending. Our idea was dwarfed in their heads. But we bought the top team of investment bankers – the Princeton and Stanford types – in the country. Our model now went head on with that of our shareholders,” says Serobe.
And this led to the genesis of Wipcapital in September 1999, which Serobe took charge of in 2001.
It was probably the most difficult phase for WIPHOLD, when it had to de-list in 2003. “It was a tense period,” says Mojela. “Business was not as expected, our salary bills were huge, we had to downsize, and were still hounded by shareholders. We had to go back to the drawing board. We decided the only salvation was to de-list from the stock exchange, return the cash to our shareholders and be left alone. In order to pay out, somebody needed to help us with hard cash. Ultimately, we got Old Mutual and did a scheme of arrangement.”
“We saw the original vision falling apart. The listing gave liquidity, but its downside was women had become a minority in their own company. The country and private sector weren’t ready for this. Through a scheme of arrangement, we bought off everybody including the women shareholders and brought them back into the shareholding via the trust,” says Serobe.
In 2005, WIPHOLD struck a headline-grabbing BEE deal with Old Mutual, which now owns 32.8% of the company.
“Starting from scratch after de-listing, WIPHOLD only had R166 million ($20 million) of [unlisted] assets. But today, we are a stable company with happy employees. We have grown from four to 40 employees, and will go from 40 to 400 in another 20 years,” says Mojela.
Miranda Feinstein, an executive consultant at Johannesburg law firm Edward Nathan Sonnenbergs, who was the architect of and continues to chair the WIPHOLD Investment Trust, and has known the founders for a long time, says she has seen their will strengthen with every adversity.
“Along the way mistakes were made; at times institutions treated them somewhat dismissively, but they always bounced back. At times, I saw they were disconsolate but one of their greatest traits is endurance. To this day, the WIPHOLD Trust is making financial benefits available to its women beneficiaries,” she says.
To reinforce their original vision, WIPHOLD also created the NGO Trust, addressing projects for women and children. Its creation increased the number of women to more than 250,000 beneficiaries, while the beneficiaries of the original trust stood at 18,000 (all of who participated in the 1997 IPO).
Through the WIPHOLD Trust, 80% of its income and profits are distributed to beneficiaries, and the remaining 20% to charitable organizations dealing with women and children. The two trusts account for 32.5% of the group’s shareholding.
Nongovernmental organizations like Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre (TLAC), a center that promotes the rights of women to live free of violence, confirm they receive significant financial benefits from WIPHOLD.
&#8220;Last year, we received R270,000 ($25,000) from WIPHOLD. Their benefits help a lot to meet our operational costs,&#8221; says Shireen Motara, Executive Director of TLAC.
Recognition has come from abroad as well. The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) business school in Switzerland has used the WIPHOLD model as a case study.
WIPHOLD is now taking the model internationally. “The WIPHOLD story can be replicated anywhere in the world. We are taking the same workshops we did in South Africa in 1994, to the rest of Africa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique and Ivory Coast,” says Mojela.
WIPHOLD has partnered with Jidong Cement, a Chinese cement company, to build a plant in Limpopo, South Africa. Like financial services, the cement sector here is not known to be a business for women.
“But that’s exactly what excites us,” says Serobe.
The cement plant is a R3 billion ($280 million) project that will come online in 2015.
In 2009, WIPHOLD entered into a deal with Sasol Mining, leading to the creation of one of the first black-women controlled mining companies in South Africa, with 51% owned by WIPHOLD.
WIPHOLD has come far, and there have been other women-led investment companies like Nozala after them, but has the country been able to keep up?
“I can understood why 20 years ago, the captains of industry, our black brothers and the women behaved the way they did, but today, I have no patience for all three, especially women who don’t have the appetite to take on challenges. They fear trying. We had hoped in 1994 that by now, there would be many WIPHOLDs. Yet, 20 years later, in the same model, there is not another entity,” says Serobe.
The legacy they leave behind is not numbers, but a generation of African women who have learned to invest and be independent.

To The Power Of  Three

If you are somewhere in Africa with a cell phone signal right now, one man’s job is done. If you’re without one, the same man promises to hook you up .This is at the heart of the business of Issam Darwish, the Lebanese-Nigerian who grew up in war and rose from a desk job to become one of Africa’s powerful telecom tycoons.
When he got his first job, he was so poor, that his boss had to lend him $8,000 to buy a car so he could get to work. From creating billing systems for a handful of dollars a week to leading a telecommunications infrastructure company in Africa—Darwish is now a man with a wealth of $200 million as valued by the FORBES wealth unit in the United States. He has walked a long road and you believe him when he says he has a lot longer to walk yet.
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Ambitious, maybe, but this is the hallmark of a driven, self-taught entrepreneur who once dreamt about winning the Nobel Prize for physics in Oslo when he was a teenager.
Darwish is a bubble of energy, one who hates the rigidity of business suits, yet wears one well. As he goes down memory lane while in his corner office in Lagos, he is as sharp and eloquent as a business man, yet as relaxed and witty as a next door neighbor.
It’s a story that began in Beirut in Lebanon. This is where Darwish was born on the cusp of the brutal civil war that was to tear the country apart. He was born to a fairly wealthy family, but with no silver spoon in his mouth.
In the turmoil of civil war, Darwish’s father lost everything. The family believed education was the way out. His father took two jobs and his mother did embroidery work to keep their children in private schools in Lebanon. Darwish senior encouraged his children to read and rewarded them for finishing books.
Luckily, young Darwish was an inquisitive bright spark. He nurtured an interest in electromagnetic fields, quantum mechanics and relativity.
“I was always the best in my school. I graduated from the best university—The American University of Beirut in Lebanon—and I wanted to do physics, I loved the sciences. When I did my SATs (the standardized tests for college admission in the United States), my grades were so high the dean of engineering called and encouraged me to do engineering instead. So, I opted for computer and communications engineering. I was among the first set of engineers who graduated from that program with distinction, barely aged 21,” says Darwish.
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“I also understood the value of money at an early stage in life. During the war, I remember my father would give me some money before I left for school [and] I’d have to decide whether I would use that money to eat at school or to take the bus back home. I had to make a decision between the two every day.”
Darwish is thankful for these realities.
“As a young person growing up in a war-torn area, our minds were cultured, but not our existence. You’d hear the fighting, see people die, you can’t go to school for weeks because fights have broken out, you experience the effects of war firsthand and you begin to appreciate the basic things in life, like electricity, water, fresh air and ultimately life,” he says.
By 1992, he was armed with an engineering qualification and a desire for more. Darwish toyed with the idea of furthering his studies with a Master’s degree in the United States (US). As he applied, he looked for ways to occupy himself.
As luck would have it, a group of Lebanese businessmen returned to Beirut with a partnership with MCI—one of the largest telecoms carriers in the world back then. They wanted to set up a network in Lebanon and offered Darwish the job of creating a billing system.
“I joined the team. While I was there, there was also a satellite station present and I was fascinated with this. I’d work on the billing system during the day and come back at night, with the permission of the CEO, just to learn more about how it works. That was my first hands-on experience in telecoms. In a short space of time, I could now operate the station by myself.”
Soon, Darwish was managing the satellite systems at MCI. He played an instrumental role in setting up the first Lebanese mobile network, after a GSM licence was won, in his role as network manager for Libancell—now called MTC Touch.
Darwish may be Lebanese by birth, but he is a true Lagosian at heart. His Nigerian citizenship is expected to come through this year and has already been awarded a chieftaincy title, ‘The Adimula of Erin Ile’ by the traditional king, in Kwara State, northern Nigeria. He knows how to navigate the streets, from Victoria Island to Lekki, with his eyes closed; he can even hold his own in pidgin—the informal lingua franca spoken in Nigeria and parts of West Africa.
“Lebanon is where I come from but Lagos is home. When I’m away, anywhere in the world, I think about Lagos more than I think about Lebanon. This is where I became a man; this is where I’ve lost money, made money, made friends. Most of my friends are Nigerians. This is home for me.”
The call of Lagos came many years ago. Following a streak of successful network set-ups in his region, investors approached Darwish to set up a mobile network up in Nigeria; things weren’t going too well with the license holders and they needed someone to sort it out. This coincided with another offer from Britain, but Darwish plumped for Nigeria.
In 1998, he brought in around 40 expatriates and trained at least 500 Nigerians in technical, billing, sales and marketing in his role as deputy managing director of Motophone, Nigeria’s first GSM operator.
“We created a network in six cities, together with Motorola and Ericsson. We started selling, we had thousands of people coming to our points of sale, people started buying… the license was soon revoked however, due to transitions in political structure that affected the financial commitments made by the license holders. This lasted five or six months. We settled our liabilities and left things there.”
This was an unpleasant setback in a difficult market. In those days, infrastructure was thin on the ground. It had 400,000 fixed telephone lines and a mere 2,000 to 3,000 cell phones. Telecommunications was mostly for the rich; power supply was sporadic, security was a problem, the ports were in chaos and diesel shortages could go on for weeks.
“Every logistical aspect was a nightmare but we found a way to set things up. We had to import generators, there was also a lack of skilled manpower—most of the skilled Nigerians were out of the country working overseas,” he says.
In 2001, the Nigerian government privatized telecommunications and auctioned the licenses. There was then a need to build sites to power these networks. This was a big break for Darwish and gave birth to the leading telecoms infrastructure company, which he co-founded—IHS.
“We had built some sites in the past. My partner, brother and I decided to invest some money in this and build a few sites. In the beginning, I had to borrow money from my father. My partner invested and we borrowed some money from the banks with an interest rate of 24%. It was staggering but that was our seed capital. We, however, made very good margins because we delivered on time and delivered quality. Motorola gave us our first contract and we learnt a lot from these guys. Soon, we started running the management of the sites as well, the business moved into site management, which was recurring.”
The cost of setting up these towers back then, was between $250,000 and $300,000. Today, they range between $150,000 and $250,000. To cover itself, a country like Nigeria requires around 20,000 of these sites. Power and security, or the lack of them, are thorns in Darwish’s side. Each tower needs at least two generators, automatic transfer switches, regulators, a massive supply chain to make sure diesel is bought at the right price and quality. This alone costs around $3,000 to $4,000 a month.
IHS currently has around 4,000 towers in Nigeria and more than 10,000 across Africa, with operations in Nigeria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan, South Sudan and recently, Zambia and Rwanda. It is working on tripling that number.
The rapid growth in demand wasn’t expected in the early years. It meant, when Nigeria tried to catch up, there was a mushrooming of towers.
“In Lebanon for instance, when we started with the GSM networks, people thought we’d have 50,000 subscribers in three years. We had 350,000 by the end of the first year. In Nigeria, people thought about a million subscribers; by the time they started selling, they realized everyone wanted a phone line. They started setting the towers up everywhere without the right planning. All the service providers were just scrambling to have these towers everywhere, so this was a good period for us,” says Darwish.
In the US, the mobile industry was built on the idea of sharing towers and competitors became partners to lower their costs. This wasn’t the case in Africa. Darwish’s team had to convince operators it was the way.
“The idea of sharing didn’t even exist back then. They all had the capital and the sites, but the management of the site was a headache. They started pushing the management aspect to us. We started pushing the idea of sharing. By 2008 and 2009, with the financial crisis, output became low, capital became scarce and people started thinking differently and sharing became an attractive idea. It was more innovative and valuable,” he says.
Darwish is impressed with the booming growth of the telecommunications sector in Africa and sees voice calls becoming obsolete.
“The future is the smartphone; this is a fact. Africa has not caught up yet because the operators need to invest the capital to ensure that the tablet gets cheaper and cheaper. Africa won’t progress technologically without the smartphone and tablet playing a key role. The continent has not been able to build the kind of infrastructure it requires to satisfy the penetration levels in voice and broadband that it requires. The average age of the population in Nigeria, for instance, is about 22 to 23. It is a young population with a burgeoning middle class. This massive consumer market is being created and growing in size and this enables us to experience the great growth pattern and the need to satisfy and cater for this group,” says Darwish.
On his work with IHS, he says: “This is not a sexy business—it is a hardcore, roll up your sleeves, be an engineer, jump into the mess, see how to fix it, be patient and connect with the grassroots type of business and I love every bit of it. You’re not going to find a lot of engineers who are also good businessmen.”
In 2009, IHS was listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and over the past year has raised more than $1 billion of  capital equity from the likes of the IFC, the sovereign wealth fund of the South Korean government—the country’s first deal in Africa—and Investec in South Africa. In December, IHS acquired new towers in Rwanda and Zambia, through MTN.
Darwish is looking at more than just telecommunications and has an eye for investment in real estate in the US, Beirut and Dubai.
He is currently involved in setting up incubator programs for aspiring tech entrepreneurs to develop a content platform. Everything from social networking, mobile money, music and fashion using digital information is his new area of interest.
“Content is another area I’m investing in. I’ve created a team to look into this. The more power I create on the broadband side, the more relevant the content will become.”
Darwish is also engaged in community upliftment.
“I like to see things being built. Improving the quality of people’s lives is what ultimately drives me. As long as this is your drive, you’ll always be successful and this is why anything I invest in must be something that involves the transformation of people’s lives.”
Darwish has founded other companies in the US and Middle East, including Vorex—a software provider for small enterprises in the US.
Darwish credits a handful of names that inspired him to become a successful tycoon.
He says he learnt a great deal from Raphael Udeogu, the former managing director of Motorola in Nigeria, about proper corporate governance processes, systems and operations. Bashir El-Rufai taught him about having faith in people and the value of goodwill. He also refers to his partner, William Saad, and his brother, Mo Darwish, as strong pillars that have been highly instrumental to the growth and sustenance of IHS from the beginning.
“When we started IHS, we set a goal to be the leading tower infrastructure service provider on the continent in 13 years. We were young and passionate, and it is due to Issam’s passion, leadership, wisdom and skills in all areas of management, engineering, finance and relationship management… that we were able to achieve all we have,” says Saad.
IHS, with an average monthly turnover of $28 million and which now employs people of 19 different nationalities, has ambitious plans to become the largest tower leasing operator on the continent.
“We’ll be investing heavily in Nigeria this year. We invested roughly $1 billion last year, in Nigeria, Cameroon and Ivory Coast in building our sites and buying from operators. This year, we’ll probably invest more than $850 million and are also looking at Zambia, Rwanda, Senegal and Guinea. I want to drive IHS and content to the next level.”
Through war, education, bureaucracy and new terrains, Darwish has emerged as a formidable warrior in the telecommunications industry and has ambitious plans to push the envelope even further.

Bus Or Food?  The First Crossroad On The Path To Being A Millionaire

It would seem Rolene Strauss’ life is full of second chances. Perhaps that’s why she has an abiding philosophy: “Everything happens twice, the first time in your mind and then in reality.”
As a child, she imagined herself one day winning the Miss World pageant. They would call her name, place the crown on her head and she would float on stage smiling and waving like a queen.
At age 22, it happened. For real.
From a petri dish to the world stage, it has been an interesting journey.
“I’m a test-tube baby,” says the beauty from Volksrust, Mpumalanga, South Africa.
Her mother, a nurse, had struggled to conceive. After five years and several failed attempts, she and Strauss’ dad, a doctor, turned to modern medicine, deciding to give fate a second chance.
In 1992, Strauss was the product of the first successful EIFT in-vitro fertilization procedure in the medical facility at the University of the Free State in the Free State province of South Africa.
As destiny would have it, ironically, after high school, this was the world Strauss would come back to, to study medicine.
“I’ve always wanted to be a doctor. Maybe because of the fact that I was a test-tube baby, maybe because of the fact that my parents were very passionate about health,” she says.
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Climbing Trees
A year after she was born, Strauss’ parents naturally conceived her younger brother, who her mother Theresa says was “sent from heaven”, while her daughter, who she calls Lolla, was mischievous and climbed trees as a child.
“Rolene was adventurous…and even as a child, the person with the strongest will and mind we knew. She excelled in everything she did. The way we remember Rolene, as a curly-haired girl, is the exact way she is today. Just a little more mature,” says Theresa.
In 2011, 19-year-old Strauss acted on her dreams, took a leap of faith and entered the Miss South Africa competition.
Paledi Segapo, a judge on the Miss South Africa 2011 panel, describes Strauss as a “late bloomer”.
“When she entered [for the first time], she didn’t seem like a strong contender, very innocent and fragile,” said Segapo in an interview on eNCA.com in December last year.
That first time, Strauss was placed in the top five.
“I remember standing there and when they didn’t call my name it was almost a relief,” she had said in an interview with Top Billing last year.
No, this was not the end, but a new beginning. Strauss thereafter enrolled for medicine at the University of the Free State.
In her fourth year, she put her studies on hold and gave her beauty pageant dream another shot. More confident and well-prepared, this time she took home the crown (March 2014).
There was more to come.
The Miss South Africa competition was merely a dress-rehearsal for the world stage.
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Cool as a breeze
In December 2014, Strauss embarked on an even bigger journey as one of 120 contestants at the Miss World pageant in London. The contestants from around the world were all vying for the diamond-sapphire-turquoise crown that would place them in history books alongside the likes of Aishwarya Rai (Miss World 1994) and Nigerian Agbani Darego (Africa’s first black woman to win Miss World in 2001).
Strauss smiles as she thinks back to her time in London.
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“The thing I will always remember from this experience is the different cultures I got to experience. We ate Thai food every night in [Maeya Nonthawan Thongleng] Miss Thailand’s room. The US is very popular for their sweets, so Miss USA [Elizabeth Safrit] brought a lot of sweets for us to try… Miss Australia [Courtney Thorpe] was probably my best friend – people actually said that we look alike. It’s so funny because she’s amazing at doing make-up and I was good at doing hair so we helped each other for the final.”
On the night of the pageant, Strauss was as cool as a light breeze on a hot summer’s day.
“I was so relaxed. I had the same feeling I had on the Miss South Africa stage. I remember looking into the audience, I saw my parents there. My mom was very relaxed but my dad was so stressed…I wouldn’t say I expected to win but I was ready.”
That night, Strauss took home the Miss World crown and became the third South African to win the competition. Past winners were Durbanite Penny Coelen in 1958 and Anneline Kriel in 1974.
Strauss floated on stage, wearing a light pink off-shoulder gown. The crowd’s gaze fixed on her treasured crown, no one had even noticed her Miss South Africa sash had slipped to the bottom of her dress.
“It was a childhood dream that came true and as big an honor as it is, it is still a responsibility&#8230;But it’s also not the destination; it’s the beginning of a new journey,” she says.
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A New life
While some may think beauty pageants are merely platforms to objectify women, Strauss sees it differently.
“If you look at beauty, it fades. What we are working on is a legacy that will last beyond our lives. If you really look at what Miss World has achieved in raising millions of dollars for charities, you’ll see that we’re making a big difference in people’s lives.”
After the London win, she arrived in Johannesburg to a hero’s welcome as thousands of fans, celebrities and supporters gathered to welcome South Africa’s newest pride.
Many who followed her journey on various social media platforms felt they already knew her.
“As soon as I hit the ground in South Africa, it has been quite hectic. I expected a few people to be there but not at all as it was. They had a choir singing. One of the girls who I gave a wheelchair to during my reign as Miss South Africa was there. I’m overwhelmed by the support.”
After hours of photographs, handshakes, hugs and gifts, Strauss sat through a number of press interviews at The Maslow Hotel in Sandton.
When it came to the final interview of the day, you wouldn’t have blamed her for wanting to kick off her heels, slump on the couch and replay recorded responses from her previous interviews.
Yet, when she opened the door of her hotel-room for this interview, she showed no signs of fatigue. She shone in a short bright yellow dress, sparkling heels and the crown intact on her head. What’s her secret?
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Fan Of A Princess
“I actually do my own hair and make-up which comes in handy because I don’t always have someone. I have someone who helps with styling, Werner Wessels, and he’s been helping me [from] before I became Miss South Africa. My style is kind of the way you tell a story without people being able to speak to you. My style icon is Princess Kate Middleton,” she says.
At the end of 2015, when Strauss’ Miss World reign ends, it will be back to medical school, university lectures, late-night study sessions and patients.
“It’s part of who I am, part of what I want to be. I want to be able to practice and I also want to start a business that focuses on women’s health…I like the holistic approach to women’s health and my health because I believe that your mind and body are interlinked and connected so if you look after you mind you automatically look after your body, also vice versa.”
Before she hits the books, Strauss has an exciting year ahead traveling to 50 countries, starting with China, India and the Philippines. She will also be working on various ventures including the ‘Beauty with a purpose’ project that raises money for humanitarian projects across the world and, as stated on her blog, a biography titled Life is a Garden.
“In life, you get a lot of platforms to do good, to reach for your dreams and have a positive influence on other people’s lives as well. Whether it’s through education, being a doctor, or others have the platform of being good at sports. That way, I’ve received the platform of Miss World and I’m going to use it to do good,” says Strauss.
Diplomatic passport in hand, her heels in her bag and the crown never too far away, she is ready to make the most of all the chances life has gifted her.

184A9133

The Second Chance That Changed Her World

Growing up was not easy for Daphne Mashile-Nkosi, but it prepared her for the troubles of mining. The manganese tycoon had a tough time breaking through the sector, especially as a woman. She was ousted from her own company, Kalahari Resources, but has since returned to reclaim her rightful throne and is recruiting more women to join her.
Born in Pilgrims Rest in Mpumalanga, South Africa, as the youngest of four children, Mashile-Nkosi lived with her grandmother until she moved to Soweto in Johannesburg, to join her mother. Her family moved around constantly and rented backrooms in the township. Her mother, a seamstress, would go hungry to ensure that she could provide as much as possible for her children, who she was raising single-handedly. It was from her that Mashile-Nkosi learned the power of staying. Her father, a general dealer who owned a football club, was quite the opposite and had little to do with his family.
The children at school looked down on her because she once brought a soggy sandwich for lunch, had a second-hand uniform and walked for kilometers to get an education. Poor families, such as hers, received a parcel of peanut butter and powdered milk from the government. Because of her humble beginnings, she vowed to rise above poverty.
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“I think those are the things that actually shaped me and made me the strong person that I am,” says Mashile-Nkosi.
There was much she would have to endure first. Teachers called her an ugly duckling and kept her from certain activities because her clothes were worn. But Mashile-Nkosi was a bright child who soared through school. In 1976, she needed $0.17 (R1.80) to write her final exams. She did the washing and ironing for her neighbor to pay the exam fee.
“What you put in is what you get out, there’s no manna that is going to fall from heaven,” says Mashile-Nkosi.
These humbling experiences made her conscious of her words and actions. Today, she has an undisputable love for clothes that stems from growing up in a time when, as a black person, your appearance showed that you had made it big.
She believes that one is shaped by numerous factors: school, parents, the environment and the status quo. This philosophy stems from the help she received throughout her journey. It is she who lends a helping hand to others these days.
Mashile-Nkosi’s next struggle was against apartheid. In her final school year, she participated in the 1976 Soweto Uprising that saw thousands of black pupils take to the streets in protest against the compulsory use of Afrikaans in schooling. The backlash killed many school children and caused uproar around the world.
It was among the activists that Mashile-Nkosi felt she finally belonged. Between 1976 and 1991, she became an underground operative for the African National Congress (ANC). In 1991, when it was clear that democracy would be imminent and the ANC was unbanned, she was a member of a welfare organization that helped return 1976 exiles.
She paid for her activism with her time as she was detained on several occasions. The first of which was a nine-month stint in solitary confinement. The authorities labeled her “a threat to the security of the state,” according to section three of the Security Act. They were long and desperate days under lock and key.
Mashile-Nkosi was so determined to speak to the person in the neighboring cell that she used a blanket to soak up the water from the toilet, her neighbor did the same. Then she covered her head with the blanket, so as not to be heard, and used the toilet as a telephone.
Years later she worked at retail and furniture stores and then at an IT company, but always struggled to settle.
“I was fired so many times. I then realized that I can never be employed. I was a performer at work but my big mouth wouldn’t allow it. I became a troublemaker because I asked the difficult questions,” she says.
This led her to establish an IT company, Temoso Telecommunication. She won a $9.03-million (R100-million) contract, but gave it away because she felt that she did not have the experience, money or the capacity needed to deliver on the project.
“I was not ready for it. Rather than mess up my name I’d rather give it to someone who could deliver,” she says.
It was in 1998 that Mashile-Nkosi’s foray into mining began, when mining businessman Sipho Nkosi, of no relation to her – who had occupied senior positions at Anglo-American Coal Corporation and BHP Billiton – approached her to start a coal mining company, Eyesizwe Coal, with him.
Mining was in her blood. Her grandfather, like many in those days, was a miner for Transvaal Gold Mining Enterprise. As the only woman in Eyesizwe, she wanted to bring more onboard. Her partner gave her a 24-hour deadline to do so. Strangely enough, she found a chartered accountant from the women’s consortium that had fired her by fax years earlier.
The story goes like this: a member of the consortium called to ask that she wait by her work fax machine for a very important document. An excited Mashile-Nkosi was not expecting what came next. Hurt and ashamed, she hid the letter in her bag and sat alone, until another member mentioned that she too had received the same fax.
Mashile-Nkosi became a rebel at Eyesizwe. After two years, she decided to start a mining company, Kalahari Resources, with the hope of pushing the role of women in mining. When she started the company people called her “the mad woman”, and said that she would never see the light of day in mining.
“We are Africans first and Africans are brought up to believe that women cannot do certain things… And also we are not brought up as women to support each other.”
In 2006, Eyesizwe merged with Kumba Resources’ non-iron ore assets to form Exxaro, which would be run by Nkosi. Today, it is the second-largest coal producer in the country with an annual production of 40 million tons and is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) Limited.
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Overnight, disaster struck Mashile-Nkosi and her brother as they were removed from the company’s list of directors and eight names were put in their places.
Speaking to FORBES AFRICA, at last year&#8217;s Mining Indaba, Mashile-Nkosi said: “I listened to some of the comments. The more I told my story, the more certain people doubted whether these assets belonged to me.”
One of those names belonged to Sandile Majali, who was an $1-million (R11-million) ANC donor in 2003. After a court battle, Majali was arrested for fraud and offered to pay Mashile-Nkosi’s legal costs. The siblings were restored to their company. In late 2010, Majali was found dead in his hotel room. He was no stranger to bad press and was reportedly involved in the Iraqi Oil-for-Food scandal.
Mashile-Nkosi pushed on with the Kalagadi Manganese project, in the Northern Cape, as a protest project on behalf of women. This was at a time when manganese was the territory of two multinationals – Anglo American and Assmang. After a long wait, Kalagadi’s license was awarded in 2005. A $1.13-million (R12.5-million) loan from Investec paid for the prefeasibility study. The favorable results landed them a $5.42-million (R60-million) loan from South Africa’s state-owned Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), which finances developmental projects.
Kalahari resources has a 40% stake in Kalagadi – 62% of which belongs to Mashile-Nkosi – while the IDC holds 10% and global steelmaker ArcelorMittal holds the remaining 50%. The contenders for a partnership on the Kalagadi project were ArcelorMittal, as well as French and Chinese mining companies. ArcelorMittal won the bid because it is a consumer of manganese, while the others are producers who, at the worst of times, may choose to sell their product first.
But the relationship with ArcelorMittal soured and went to court. The steelmaker alleged a lack of corporate governance, which left Mashile-Nkosi and her team no option but to buy them out. They signed a $350.25-million (R3.9-billion) buyout deal in December 2012 and the relationship is the best it has ever been. It was a difficult time, having to raise billions for a smelter as well as the $350.25 million (R3.9 billion) for equity. Discussions for the equity are, as of going to print, being held with the Public Investment Corporation, one of the Africa’s largest investment managers.
“You need to take the initiative of making sure people believe in you, by doing it.”
The project involved sinking a shaft (±R1.5 billion), building an operational plant (±R2 billion), a sinter plant (±R3 billion) and a smelter (±R6 billion). A $650-million (R7.2-billion) framework agreement for the smelter has been signed. The team is working on the commercial terms, after approaching a number of funding institutions.
Mashile-Nkosi is the first black women to own a manganese mine and sinter plant. Her husband, Dan Nkosi, was her greatest supporter, but never got to see her dream fulfilled. The struggle veteran and former Robben Island inmate died from a throat operation that went wrong. She poured the pain of losing her partner into her work.
Black people have historically bought mines that are known to have plentiful resources and well-established infrastructure. In her case, and what sets Kalagadi apart, the land was bare. There was no electricity, water, rail or roads. And the diesel for the generators alone cost $25.30 million (R280 million).
The underground ore has 37% manganese content and three million tons will be mined. Once sintered, it will be transported to the Coega Industrial Development Zone, in the Eastern Cape, for smelting. Projected net sales revenues for the financial years ending 2015, 2016 and 2017 are $100 million (R1.1 billion), $433 million (R4.8 billion), and $632.63 million (R7 billion) respectively.
The mine launch was attended by government officials, including President Jacob Zuma, economic development minister Ebrahim Patel, and minister of mineral resources Susan Shabangu.
“We are proud that as we celebrate 20 years of democracy, we can count amongst this government’s achievements in the mining industry, the fact that we have more women in the sector. We hope that Ms Daphne Mashile-Nkosi’s example can serve as an inspiration to all women and remind them that it is indeed possible to achieve great things in a sector that has traditionally been male-dominated,” says Shabangu.
Thirty thousand jobs were created during the construction phase and the production phase will provide 3,000 full-time jobs. According to the South African Chamber of Mines, 10 people are supported for every job created in the mining sector. In the near future, Kalagadi wants half of its workforce to be women. All this at a time when mining is struggling in South Africa.
Mashile-Nkosi encourages people to nurture a culture of selflessness and upliftment, which she believes can also boost personal growth. The entrepreneur condemns, what she refers to as, the prevailing sense of entitlement.
“My grandmother [an orphan that became a domestic worker at 13] said to me one day: ‘I, or your mother, don’t owe you anything, we don’t have to work for you, we don’t have to feed you, we don’t have to clothe you. You are in this life on your own and you must get through this life.’”
The manganese tycoon believes that it is her calling to encourage fellow African women to become entrepreneurs through the words of her grandmother.

Struggle And Strife For The Woman  Who Gave Away  A $9.3-Million Deal

To say Nicky Oppenheimer is understated is an understatement in itself. It is tantamount to saying his family – the third richest in Africa – is well off; or that Winston Churchill, another famous Old Harrovian, was a fair public speaker.
It must be tough suffering the stare and glare that goes with being the scion of a powerful world famous family, but Oppenheimer wears his eminence lightly as he sits opposite me for this rare interview. This Johannesburg office may be dressed lavishly, but the man himself, in a blue open-necked shirt, is not. He is measured, calm and guarded as he chats about everything from entrepreneurs and corruption to government and business. There is a glint of pride in the eye when he mentions, fleetingly at the end of the interview, his son’s first class cricket career as an Oxford Blue. Jonathan Oppenheimer bowled for Combined Universities against one of the world’s finest batsmen, West Indian Brian Lara.
“He bowled the first three and moved them away and then brought one back into the pad. Lara LBW Oppenheimer 0,” chuckles the proud father.
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The laidback calm belies a busy few years for the Oppenheimers and the two corporate giants that the family took generations to build: Anglo American and De Beers. In the next few years, the family will invest billions into Africa and her entrepreneurs with straightforward business philosophy.
“You have to learn to get on with people, you have to learn to determine the bullshit from the serious stuff, and then you have to have a good common sense and a vision of where you want to get to,” says Oppenheimer.
This no nonsense approach is driving the family forward in the business of private equity. The investment drive came after the wrench of selling out from De Beers, the largest diamond producer in the world. Along with Anglo American, De Beers may have survived political upheaval and two world wars, but the recession of 2008 proved a turning point.
“From a De Beers perspective, it came at a bad time. De Beers had just being opening new mines so we had to borrow money to pay for the mines – you don’t get a return very quickly – so we had to renegotiate our debt conversance with the bank, that environment wasn’t easy. We managed, we had to turn to our shareholders and get more money from them; this was post privatization. So both Anglo and the family put up more money, which was brave on both our parts,” says Oppenheimer.
“In my father’s lifetime, he talked about the great depression, where the situation was far more dramatic than anything I ever had to face, and you knew that people wanted to have diamonds, there was never any lessening of desire just that they didn’t have the income to do it. So you had to cut your cloth to suit that and wait for the times to improve… It never occurred to me that the business wouldn’t recover, there were times where you have somewhat sleepless nights.”
The emotional decision came in 2011. After 85 years, the Oppenheimers voted to sell their 40% stake in De Beers, the business that built the family fortune, for an estimated $5.1 billion. For the first time in decades, the family had no stake in any listed company.
“Not quite a difficult decision, the fact that there were three shareholders in De Beers, the family, Anglo and the Botswana Government was always in my view an unstable arrangement and I knew something was going to happen at some stage. Either Anglo would say it was not a business for them or they would say they really want to be in it in a much more serious way than we are at the moment and they came out on that side and made us a very fair and reasonable offer. And then of course I was in a difficult position because I had to deal with a business I had been in all my life on the one hand, and then the requirements of the family, my sister, her children, my children. We ended up in a situation where my heart made me say ‘look we should stay with De Beers’ but my head knew absolutely clear that this was the right deal to do.”
Analysts in Johannesburg will say Mary Slack, Oppenheimer’s sister, was a strong voice in the decision to sell.
“She (my sister) was not in the day to day running of the business… We all ended up wanting to sell,” replies Oppenheimer.
The parting broke a link with De Beers that dates back to Nicky’s grandfather, who led the family’s charge into Africa.
A London trading company posted 21-year-old EO Oppenheimer, the son of a German cigar merchant, to South Africa to buy diamonds. He took to the diamond trade like a duck to water and his knowledge of the stones was unparalleled; legend has it that Oppenheimer used to carry a note book around him to write down any useful business information. By the time he was 30, Oppenheimer was the mayor of the diamond town of Kimberly – no mean feat in an age when grey hair ruled the roost.
“I always remember him as a very quiet guy, I remember him as the sort of guy that if you bumped into him you rebounded,” says Oppenheimer.
The formidable Harry Oppenheimer was the next generation – a strident man who made his mark both in business and politics, as well as guiding his son in the art of business.
“No, I don’t think he was a tough man in business, he had a very good view of the right way to get to a point, to how to negotiate his way there. I would have thought my grandfather was a tougher business man,” says Oppenheimer.
“I always knew that my father was there and I could discuss business matters with him, and that gave you a head start, it never got you to the finishing line, so that was whether you could deliver or not. He taught me business went on and it was an assessment of risk and to be a successful business man you have to take risks. There is no good being risk adverse, then you go nowhere.”
Nicky Oppenheimer’s air harks back to the gentility of 1950s Britain, where he began his education at prep school at the age of seven. Harrow and Christ Church Oxford followed.
“I am of an age where going to university was the last holiday of your life and I thought that was absolutely fantastic. Politics, philosophy and economics was a good sort of all-round degree. I thought it was fantastic, wonderful life. I didn’t work very hard I got a third-class degree at the end of it all. But I had a lot of fun,” he says.
When Oppenheimer arrived home in South Africa, the army called him for national service.
“The army had a terrible problem with me and that was that I had a degree, and so if you have a degree you did your basics and then became an officer. So, I became an officer and then they had no idea what to do with me. I had no skills that were of any use to them at all. I was sent to a great big parking lot just outside Pretoria and I signed my name every time a vehicle came in and I signed saying the vehicle had four tyres and two headlights. I always say that the army taught me how to sign my name very fast,” he smiles.
Then, Oppenheimer took his seat on the board, which he was to occupy for 37 years.
“It is what I saw myself doing; I had a particular love within the Anglo business, the diamond business. I was lucky enough to achieve what any diamond person’s primary ambition would be and that’s become chairman of De Beers. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky,” he says.
Not too soon after the De Beers exit in 2011, the family set up its investment arm Tana Africa Capital with the investment company E. Oppenheimer &amp; Son and Temasek, a sovereign wealth fund from Singapore. The partners put up $150 million each and sources say the family is also ready to invest the billions from the De Beers deal. The investment company will look at agriculture and consumer businesses. It will also consider deals in media, healthcare and education up to $50 million.
“We are Africans and we would like to invest in Africa. So we are busy looking for things to do, we have some investments but we are constantly on the lookout,” says Oppenheimer.
Tana Africa Capital has already invested in Promasidor Group, a company founded in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1979, that sells everything from powdered milk to tea in 30 African countries. Regina is Egypt’s second largest pasta manufacturer and owns the country’s only durum wheat flour mill. It has an expanding export business into Africa and the Middle East.
Oppenheimer has faith in African entrepreneurs.
“People are pretty entrepreneurial in Africa and growing so and that is very encouraging, a constraint in Africa is bureaucracy,” he says.
“The problem rests on the fact that, so many African economies are mineral based. The thing with minerals is that you can’t pick them up and take them anywhere and that allows government, wherever they are, to be bureaucratic, which is not business friendly, because a business can’t simply say I don’t like you I’m going to go somewhere else, you’ve got to deal with it. As a continent we’ve got to learn that you’ve got to be business friendly and find ways to create an environment for business to flourish and that means a bit of a mind change. The important thing is they (governments) have a huge role to play in controlling the environment. The less they have to do with the actual business, in my view, the better.”
I venture that, in the words of Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is to keep government out of business.
“What one has to realize and what governments have to understand is, they are missing an opportunity. The penny will fall and then they must do much more than you talked about. They have to create the environment, they have to set the rules and regulations and tax rates but actually running of business is something short term that government is really bad at.”
And corruption?
“You have to stand up for what is right, corruption is an extremely insidious and dangerous thing and very difficult to eradicate once it starts… I often ask people once you’ve become a corrupt society, how do you stop being a corrupt society? And you don’t get very satisfactory answers. I think you have to demonstrate that you can be successful and contribute to society while being ethically sound, and it will be a long and slow process.”
More legislation, I venture.
“I always worry about legislation and what is does. When legislation comes forward, it is designed to catch the crooks. To my mind the crooks are always too clever to be caught. What is does is make honest people’s lives intolerable. So there has to be legislation but there has to be a drive to get people to believe in business ethics and doing the right thing.”
Then there is the struggling mining industry, which Oppenheimer spent more than half of his life working in. South Africa was shaken by a costly four-month strike in the platinum mines, followed by sapping and unprecedented power cuts. The Energy Intensive User Group that represents 32 of the country’s biggest energy consumers – including the smelters and mines – says 97% of its members are cutting back on capital projects because of a fear of power cuts.
“I think [mining] has a huge contribution to make. People talk about it like it’s a curse, which it certainly isn’t. Minerals have a future, if you’re blessed with minerals that’s a fantastically good start – you’ve got to use them. I think what happened in Botswana is a good example of a country that has taken its diamond revenues and put it to a good cause. You’ve got to find a way of encouraging mining, and mining is more long term than almost anything else. So you’ve got to create an environment where somebody is going to invest billions of dollars with a view that the first return will be seven to ten years away and the confidence to believe that the deal you have and environment you’re dealing in will still be there in seven to ten years. Then you will find people who will invest and companies and businesses will do… It is going to depend on the mining legislation, which is a bit up in the air at the moment. If you want to invest in a mine, you have to say ‘am I confident that the environment that the government creates for me will stand the seven to ten year test.’”
Oppenheimer concedes that the battered image of mining, in the land of his birth, has made foreign investors think twice.
“I think that people are looking at South Africa and waiting to see – that’s a bad situation. You want them not to be in wait mode, you want them to be in invest mode. The key thing in South Africa seems to be the creation of jobs. The government task I think should be to do everything in its power to create jobs so that the huge number of unemployed youth we have in the country can get jobs, get wages, fair proper wages and that needs to color every decision they make,”
says Oppenheimer.
As for the man himself, he is throwing himself into a number of philanthropic projects including the effort to save the endangered pangolin. Apparently, the long-tailed, scaly mammal is prone to electric security fences in the bush and is dying out.
If the pangolin survives and corruption dies, surely anything is possible in Africa.

‘Corruption  Is An Extremely Insidious And Dangerous Thing’

He is Africa’s king of telecommunications. He’s a frontrunner in fiber optics. And he operates the continent’s largest satellite communications business. Add fixed and enterprise networks to the mix and you get Econet Wireless Group, one of the largest telecommunication companies in the world. This is the life story of a man who rose from a poor village in Zimbabwe to take a seat at the top table of world business.
As the company’s founder and executive chair, Strive Masiyiwa is writing entrepreneurial history. His Econet Group is a celebrated example of how to make it in Africa, through constant re-invention and persistent expansion into new countries and sectors. It has earned him a personal fortune of $600 million, according to FORBES.
With well over 30 million mobile customers, thousands of corporate clients and almost 6,000 employees, Econet generates an estimated $3 billion in annual revenue—and that’s probably a conservative figure.
The group has operations and investments in 17 countries, mainly on the continent, as well as in Europe, the United States, Latin America and Asia-Pacific.
Communications technology is written across Masiyiwa’s heart. He already understood in the early 1990s that the opportunity to use mobile phones to drive change in Africa is enormous: the continent is the world’s fastest growing market for cellular technology.
Twenty years ago, less than 1% of Africans had a telephone. Today, the once dark continent is the talking continent, with three out of four Africans owning a cell phone. It’s one of the most phenomenal business successes in the continent’s history.
“There are more cell phones in Africa today than in Europe. More Africans access the internet via the cell phone than Europeans,” says Masiyiwa.
But Econet’s telecoms interests stretch well beyond mobile phones. Recognizing the growing need for data on top of voice services, Econet has expanded into fiber optics infrastructure.
“It’s important to move with the changes taking place in our sector. It’s no longer sufficient to just provide voice. People have increasing data requirements,” says Masiyiwa.
Econet’s British subsidiary, Liquid Telecom, now runs Africa’s longest network across 14 borders from Cape Town, via Kigali, Kampala and Nairobi all the way up to Mogadishu.
Its fiber optics customers are mainly large corporations, including mining and oil companies, internet service and mobile providers, as well as banks.
“It’s about staying ahead of the curve,” says Masiyiwa, listed by FORBES as one of the 20 most powerful African entrepreneurs in 2011.
Over the years, he has become known for having a nose for investments and to sniff them out early: African internet users—who have a growing need for data—have increased ninefold since 2003.
“There’s a tsunami of data. People talk less on their cell phones than they use data. The traditional cell phone networks can’t carry that. You just have to look post-voice,” Masiyiwa says.
To provide a visual image of this data tsunami, if you stacked up the total global data, he says, it would reach 2.5 quintillion bites. About 90% of that was generated in the last two years alone.
Econet’s fiber optic expansion through its Liquid Telecom arm is fairly aggressive, according to TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod.
“They are plugging in a very big gap that exists in Africa,” he says.
“Masiyiwa is a shrewd operator who is very connected and understands the market as well as the conditions on the ground. He knows how to operate in tough business environments and how to make the best of it.”
Diversion of investments is part of that strategy. And whatever Masiyiwa sets his mind on, he does it well. Econet operates Africa’s largest satellite communications business, provides fixed networks, enterprise networks, payment technologies to banks across the continent and has investments in insurance, Coca-Cola bottling plants, hotels and safari lodges.
Yet another arm, Econet Solar, is growing rapidly, offering products from solar lanterns to home power stations to bring lighting to off-grid communities.
It all looks like a smooth ride in hindsight. But it took Masiyiwa years of hard work, persistence and heaps of faith.
He got his first glimpse on what makes a successful entrepreneur when helping out in his mother’s furniture business in Zambia, after the family fled Zimbabwe—then called Rhodesia—in 1965 to escape Ian Smith’s regime after the declaration of independence from Britain. From the age of seven, Strive, his brother and his sister helped out in the workshop, which helped pay them through boarding school in Edinburgh.
“My mother manufactured and sold her own furniture. She was very good at it. It was a typical African family business. You are part and parcel of what goes on in it. I learnt a lot of the basics from her, including the importance of hard work,” he recalls.
Masiyiwa applies these principles to this day. Although Econet is far from a family business, it follows the ethos of his mother’s small firm: people first.
“The most important aspect of a business is its people; how you motivate them, how you keep them. Those are enduring principles,” he says.
Even though Masiyiwa had left his home country at a young age, he always longed to return to Zimbabwe. After he finished school, he planned to join the guerrillas in the armed struggle against Smith’s ruling white minority. He realized that an education might be a better tool to wage the war against injustice.
He studied engineering in Britain instead and returned in his early twenties to what is now Zimbabwe, run by Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF, to work for the national telephone company, ZPTC.
“I decided that it really wasn’t for me to work for an enterprise, so I started my own business. Because there were no opportunities in telecommunications, I changed sectors and started a construction firm,” Masiyiwa says.
Retrofit, his construction business, was soon snapping up lucrative government and private sector contracts throughout Zimbabwe.
“Even if you visit Harare today, there is hardly a major building that I wasn’t involved in,” says Masiyiwa.
<div id="attachment_2421" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-2421" class="size-medium wp-image-2421" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Strive-Masiyiwa4-hires-300x202.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="202" />Strive Masiyiwa, Chiarman of Econet Wireless. Photographed in London this afternoon.</div>
Trained as a telecommunications engineer, Masiyiwa’s ears pricked up in the early 1990s when people started talking about mobile phones. Despite his success in construction, he decided to bet on wireless communications.
“As soon as I saw that the telecommunications sector was opening up, I began to pursue that,” he recalls.
The hitch: state-owned ZPTC had a monopoly. When he approached his former employer in 1993 with plans for a wireless joint venture, they said no, refusing him a license.
Instead of giving up, Masiyiwa thought of plan B. He came up with the idea of telecommunications as a beacon of freedom.
“Being able to talk to someone on a telephone is part of freedom of expression, I thought. That means that monopolies restrict freedom of expression,” he says of his ruse.
Thus began a five-year constitutional court battle, which brought Masiyiwa international prominence, but made him rather unpopular with his government. It was also the end of his flourishing construction business. As soon as he took on Mugabe, doors slammed in his face.
“The day we filed the case, every single contract we had with any government organization ended,” he says.
The intelligence men and the police made life even more difficult for Masiyiwa, his wife and six children.
To keep financially afloat, he eventually sold Retrofit, back then the biggest company in Zimbabwe.
“I scrambled to sell the business because it was in court against the government. When I eventually found a buyer, he said I needed to resolve the dispute first. But I couldn’t wait years, so I set up a new company, Econet, and transferred the litigation to the new company,” he says.
It was a tough time, but what made him hang in there was his irrevocable Christian faith. The constitutional battle coincided with a spiritual awakening, says Masiyiwa.
“When I was in my mid-thirties, I came across the bible and made a commitment to become a Christian and live life according to certain values,” he says.
“When you have faith, you don’t see obstacles. Knowing God was on my side, I never had a sense of struggle,” Masiyiwa, a born-again Christian, says while explaining why he never faltered despite the financial stresses and intimidation.
Masiyiwa, who grew up in a non-religious family, is now a member of a tight-knit church community.
“In fact, it was the church that carried me through. They rallied behind me in an extraordinary way,” he recalls.
Many Zimbabweans supported Masiyiwa’s case against the government. Ordinary people would walk up to him on the street to offer their solidarity, promising to never own a cell phone until he was allowed to operate in the country.
When the court eventually ruled in his favor, in December 1997, removing the monopoly, Econet shot up to become a market leader only six weeks after being licensed. Masiyiwa soon became Zimbabwe’s first US dollar millionaire.
He never forgot the support he received during this difficult time from his church and his people. Every year, Masiyiwa donates a sizable chunk of his annual income to his church. He also listed Econet’s Zimbabwean subsidiary partially on the Harare Stock Exchange—Econet otherwise remains a private business.
“When I got my license, I felt I had to give those who supported me an opportunity to be owners in my company. I wanted them to be more than just customers. So, I sold 40 percent of the subsidiary and kept the rest. I decided it was the best way to show my appreciation,” he says.
“The response was phenomenal. We have the largest and widest ownership of any company.”
Not only Zimbabweans, but people across the continent can be grateful to Masiyiwa. The case was a milestone in opening up Africa’s telecommunications sector to private capital, making mobile phones affordable.
It was also Masiyiwa’s stepping stone for creating an Africa-centered global corporation.
He launched all over the continent; from Botswana to Lesotho, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and eventually South Africa, where he relocated in 2000. Today, he lives between Johannesburg, where Econet is headquartered, and London, where his family lives.
Botswana was the first step of Masiyiwa’s expansion strategy, even before he moved to South Africa. He set up Mascom, short for Masiyiwa Communications, a consortium to launch Botswana’s first cell phone company, and won a public tender called by Botswana’s government. Shortly thereafter, he bought Lesotho’s public telephone company.
“I became known for putting consortia together, because we didn’t have a lot of our own capital. In each country, I found partners and put a strong offer together,” he says.
“To be successful as a business in telecommunications, I had to leave Zimbabwe. And that had nothing to do with politics. Zimbabwe is a small country. There was only so far I could go. Since I had a great management team in Zimbabwe, there was no need for me to hang around there.”
Masiyiwa never set foot in Zimbabwe again, but he never forgot the people he left behind. Ever the defender of freedom of expression, he made a personal loan in 2000 to the country’s then only independent newspaper, the Daily News, which was shut down by the government three years later.
His reputation as an entrepreneur who takes mobile phones to the people, and doesn’t take no for an answer, has spread.
“One day, I got a phone call from the Maori in New Zealand, who had read about my battles in Zimbabwe. They wanted me to help them to bid for an empowerment license for a mobile operator,” he says.
Since Masiyiwa likes a bit of a challenge, he packed his bags and flew to the Pacific. With the help of his battle-hardened team, he got New Zealand’s indigenous people their license. They treated him like a hero and to his pride and joy, the company, 2degrees, remains successful to this day.
Masiyiwa returned to South Africa to pursue his own ventures. He had set his sights on Kenya where the government had put the national telephone company up for tender.
“We won it, but the people who were in office had strange ideas about how to do business. After a very inappropriate proposal came through, I said ‘Thank you, but no thank you’ and called the deal off,” Masiyiwa says.
It was the beginning of his fervent crusade against corruption. Masiyiwa abandoned more than a handful of lucrative but non-transparent government tenders in Nigeria, Malawi and Cameroon.
“Dealing with corruption is simple. You walk away,” he says, claiming he has never paid a bribe and simply says no.
“It’s not the end of the world if the deal doesn’t happen. I have no regrets.”
He has to admit, however, that he was at times persecuted for his tough stand against corruption and at other times had to wait years to launch operations in a country because corrupt officials were blocking his way.
In the example of Kenya, his resolve and patience eventually paid off. A couple of years after walking away from the tender, elections replaced Kenya’s leadership.
“The new government called me and asked me to bid for another license, promising it was going to be open and transparent. I bid and won that tender and began to build a new business in Kenya, which I subsequently sold to (French mobile provider) Orange,” he says.
Instead of wasting his energy on dodgy deals, Masiyiwa poured it into staying on top of his game in Africa.
Masiyiwa is quite a visionary, who must not be underestimated in any way, says Arthur Goldstuck, director of business technology research firm World Wide Worx.
“He created a real pan-African business in a sector dominated by foreign firms and foreign investment. What makes Masiyiwa unique is his pan-African approach while also branching out elsewhere in the world. He doesn’t see Africa as a limitation. That’s very rare.”
Whoever thought Masiyiwa was just about earning top dollar couldn’t be more wrong. When he turned 50 three years ago, he decided to spend half of his time promoting entrepreneurship and social development in Africa, with projects ranging from health to education and agriculture.
“While I’m still interested in the growth and development of my business, I only spend half of my time on it. It was a very deliberate decision,” he says.
Among many other initiatives, Masiyiwa helped to develop a $50 tablet for disadvantaged students, which will be rolled out this year in universities and colleges in Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Burundi and Lesotho. He also developed solar-powered cell phone chargers for communities without electricity and launched affordable weather-indexed insurance schemes for smallholder farmers.
But most importantly, Masiyiwa works towards making mobile telephony more affordable for the average African. Without communications technology, people are unable to become part of their country’s economic growth, he says.
Years ago, he invented the free ‘call me’ messaging service for subscribers that have run out of airtime. Econet’s latest initiative is tariff zoning based on capacity utilization so that customers in poor rural areas are charged lower tariffs than those in wealthier urban areas.
“I believe that meeting the needs of ordinary people is not mutually exclusive from being a successful, profitable business. We are in constant search for creating greater value for our customers. We are constantly developing products and services that break the barrier,” he says.
Also, Masiyiwa commits considerable time to numerous charities and trusts, including the Rockefeller Foundation, AGRA, which represents smallholder farmers, the United Nations panel for sustainable energy and Kofi Annan’s Africa Progress Panel.
He was appointed by Bill Clinton to serve the Southern African Enterprise Development Fund and sits on the boards of the Nelson Mandela Advisory Committee and Endeavor SA.
One of the most respected Universities in the United States, Morehouse College, where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior was educated, recognized Masiyiwa’s humanitarian work and philanthropy with an honorary doctorate.
Perhaps most importantly, he supports 42,000 orphans in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Burundi through the Capernaum Trust, which he established with his wife Tsitsi.
Fellow Zimbabwean entrepreneur Tawanda Nyambirai, the founder and chief executive of TN Holdings, once called Masiyiwa an honest, generous, kind and humble man.
Together with British entrepreneur Richard Branson, Masiyiwa now also runs the Carbon War Room, an international non-profit organization, which helps entrepreneurs develop solutions to fight climate change.
“Strive is passionate about Africa gaining full economic freedom,” Branson wrote in his latest book Screw Business As Usual. He also credited Masiyiwa as one of the people responsible for the communications revolution.
No wonder Masiyiwa is often referred to as the Bill Gates of Africa—a backhanded compliment he takes in his stride.
“I thought Bill was the Strive Masiyiwa of America!” he quips.

“Dealing With Corruption Is Simple, Just Say No”

<ol>
<li>
<h4>Akinwumi Adesina</h4>
</li>
</ol>
<h4>Nigeria’s minister of agriculture and rural development</h4>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2350" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC1126-199x300.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="300" />
Akinwumi Adesina is a man on a mission. As Nigeria’s minister of agriculture and rural development since 2011, his methodologies have rejuvenated and elevated a once comatose sector into an emerging economic El Dorado.
Once renowned for its peanut pyramids, cocoa, timber and oil palm exports, the last time Nigeria took agriculture seriously was in the 1950s, around the same time the country discovered crude oil.
Adesina is currently unleashing a positive shake-up on Nigeria’s agriculture ecosystem. His purposeful and transparent leadership has changed Nigeria’s agriculture governance, cleansing the Augean stables, attracting much needed investments and effectively reversing the social economics of the sector.
“I am a minister on a mission,” he told FORBES AFRICA in Abuja, Nigeria’s administrative capital.
“Our farmers have waited for too long for people to develop ways of creating wealth for them, and I am determined to unlock the enormous potential of agriculture in Nigeria.”
Unlocking that trapped potential has meant changing the perception of the sector as a development case and dumping the sector’s bad habits. Nigeria currently imports one billion naira worth of rice daily—that’s almost $2.5 billion annually—and even as the largest producer of citrus in Africa, and number two after China globally, it still buys citrus fruit and concentrate from around the world.
These acquired tastes for foreign foods showcase the opportunity and biotechnology gaps in the sector, which was worth $99 billion in 2012. Adesina believes he can grow Nigerian agriculture into a $230 billion wealth generator over the next five years and has embarked on a tropical wheat and rice revolution. The aim is to reduce Nigeria’s wheat bill by 50% and make Africa’s hungriest nation self-sufficient in rice by 2015. Many do not believe this is achievable.
Adesina is undaunted. He argues that there is plenty of space for expansion. Not more than 10% of Nigeria’s 84 million hectares landmass is optimally cultivated. For the first time in a while, Nigeria’s food import bill declined by $5.4 billion in 2012, far exceeding the set target of $2.2 billion. His Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) last year alone created 2.7 million jobs, added 9 million tons of additional crop output to current production levels and galvanized $4.8 billion into the economy.
“Agriculture is big business and my goal is to make as many millionaires, maybe even billionaires, in the long-term from agriculture as possible,” he says
“My vision for Nigeria’s agriculture sector is that we will use agriculture to produce stupendous amount of wealth; that the sector will be as productive, as efficient and competitive like that of Brazil and others… My dream is that we will become an agriculturally industrialized economy.”
He has curbed the endemic scam of fertilizer allocation and distribution in Nigeria. Faceless cabals in government had previously controlled and mismanaged agricultural subsidies.
“We ended the corruption of 40 years in exactly 90 days. I took the government totally out of the buying and selling of fertilizers; now it’s all private sector driven,” says Adesina.
He reckons that almost $4.9 billion of the over $5.4 billion spent subsidizing fertilizer between 1980 and 2012 has not been accounted for.
“Only 11% of fertilizers bought ever got to the farmers,” he says.
Most of Nigeria’s farmers now have electronic wallets, a scheme which allows them to access fertilizer information and supplies via their mobile phones.
Africa’s most populous nation has certainly benefited from Adesina’s professional acuity, experience and passion for change. He has put his global network and solid grasp of agriculture dynamics at his country’s disposal, helping to lay a solid foundation for Nigeria’s food production value chain. In retrospect, his appointment was a turning point for Nigerian agriculture. He knew that the absence of farmers’ records was antithetical to his big, audacious plans, so barely a few days on the job he promptly embarked on a nationwide farmers registration exercise.
“For decades Nigeria kept spending billions of naira on farmers that it didn’t know. Now, Nigeria is the first country in Africa to have a full biometric database of its farmers,” he says.
Around 15 million farmers have been captured on the database so far. Agriculture currently accounts for 44% of the national GDP.
Asked how he felt on being shortlisted for the FORBES AFRICA Person of the Year, he replied: “I was quite humbled by my nomination. It shows that FORBES AFRICA recognizes that value is more than money, that agriculture’s place in the country has changed forever, and that the most important thing about public service is the impact that we bring to the lives and livelihoods of millions of people… so the magazine’s recognition of that is exciting for me as a person. I am not a billionaire but I can certainly help to make others millionaires and billionaires&#8230;”
Adesina’s resume reveals his intellectual wealth and global positioning. He won the Rockefeller Foundation Social Science Research Fellowship in 1988, thereafter going to work and consult for some of the foremost agricultural institutions in the world. A globally recognized agriculture expert, he received a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics with first-class honors from the University of Ife, Nigeria, in 1981, and his PhD degree in agricultural economics in 1988 from Purdue University, USA, where he won an award for his research work. In 2009, he was appointed by the United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon as one of the 17 global leaders to spearhead the Millennium Development Goals. He remains an adviser to several international development agencies and African governments.
Adesina has revived trust and global confidence in the ability of Nigeria’s agriculture sector to fuel economic growth. As Nigerian banks queue to lend to Nigerian farmers using the government-backed Growth Enhancement Scheme (GES), international financial institutions have posted around $2 billion to support Adesina’s initiatives this year. The sector has also attracted $8 billion of private sector funds over the last two years.
“That covers fertilizer manufacturing, seed companies, food processing firms and so on… it’s never happened in Nigeria or in the history of any African country,” he says.
A new dawn has arrived on the door steps of Nigerian agriculture.

A Minister First  In The field

The accidental economist: Dr. NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA

It took weeks of hard work to verify Rabiu as Africa’s newest billionaire. It took research and calculations by the wealth unit of FORBES, in the United States, and FORBES AFRICA journalists in London, Lagos and Johannesburg.
It is certain that Rabiu will move up the FORBES list of Africa’s richest, which will be expanded from 40 to 50 this year. He was ranked 21st last year. This year’s list will be published in the December-January issue of FORBES AFRICA.
According to Kerry Dolan, the senior editor at FORBES in charge of the wealth unit in San Francisco, the list only adds a few billionaires from Africa to the rankings each year.
“It is too early to say what we are finding. We know that Abdulsamad Rabiu will be on the list as a new billionaire from Nigeria, thanks to reporting by FORBES AFRICA,” says Dolan.
Rabiu, unlike many billionaires on the continent, opened up his books and bank accounts to prove his wealth. The 53-year-old heads the BUA Group, with headquarters on Victoria Island, Lagos. An investigation by FORBES AFRICA turned up a string of assets.
The BUA Group has interests in key sectors similar to those of countryman, Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man. They include cement, sugar and flour. Through the group’s subsidiaries it does business in real estate, steel, port concessions, manufacturing, oil, gas and shipping.
The group also owns the ship BUA Cement 1, a 200-meter long vessel designed for heavy loads. It is Nigeria’s first floating terminal.
In addition to his assets in the BUA Group, Rabiu owns property in Britain, worth $62 million, and in South Africa, worth $19 million. Among his properties is a house in Gloucester Square in London worth nearly $16 million and a penthouse at The One &amp; Only Hotel, in Cape Town, worth $12.6 million. Rabiu’s taste for good living is plain to see; he has bought homes from Eaton Square to Avenue Road, also known as Millionaires’ Row.
Rabiu jets around the world on an eight-seater Gulfstream G550 worth $44.9 million, powered by a Rolls-Royce BR710 turbofan engine, as well as an $18-million Legacy 600 aircraft.
<h4>Meet Africa’s Newest Billionaire</h4>
On a chilly autumn night in London, a chauffeured Bentley glides into the courtyard of a quiet and affluent home. Seconds later, at the entrance of the grand two-storey house, the doors swing open and out walks one of Africa’s richest men in a T-shirt, jeans and black overcoat. Hardly how one imagines the publicity-shy chairman and CEO of BUA Group, a privately-owned conglomerate with annual revenues estimated at $2 billion.
The look may be modest; his ambitions are anything but, as revealed by his plans to invest more than $500 million in Nigeria’s economy over the next few years. This is Abdulsamad Rabiu, the unassuming Nigerian business tycoon, full of life, with a keen ear and a great business story.
Born in Nigeria’s northern state of Kano, Rabiu is the son of renowned businessman, Isyaku Rabiu, who made a fortune in trade and industry in the decades after Nigeria’s independence. By the 1970s, Isyaku’s wealth and influence had grown considerably. He emerged as a key sponsor of the National Party of Nigeria, which became the ruling political party after the country returned to civilian rule, following the elections of 1979. A military coup, in 1983, toppled the government and led to the arrest of the president Shehu Shagari and many of his close associates, including Isyaku.
Around this time, the younger Rabiu earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, in the United States. He returned home to find his father’s business in a precarious state following the incarceration. Barely 24 years old, with little business experience, Rabiu had to lead his father’s business empire during dark days.
“It was very difficult. When we started, our dad was not there. There was this huge vacuum, because of his personality. He grew the business, he did everything, everybody reported to him, and then he wasn’t there anymore. So at a very tender age, I was saddled with so many things; I had to make a lot of important decisions, and don’t forget that this happened suddenly,” says Rabiu.
“At the time, there were three ships being discharged, rice and sugar ships. The government agencies tried to seize the goods; so we were discharging, they were taking, we were taking back. It was a big, big issue. Those kinds of things were really challenging.”
“The biggest challenge was that there were restrictions on confirming letters of credit because of the coup. Then there was the issue of the planes; there were two private jets and we didn’t know what to do with them. We couldn’t fly them. They actually grounded the jets. We were able to get the big one out and we decided we didn’t need it. I just got rid of it.”
“[My father] was in detention, so who was going to be flying a private jet at that time with the major-general Muhammadu Buhari around. They grounded the small plane for two years but it was released after [my father] was released from detention.”
In 1988, Rabiu set up his own business, BUA International, with the blessing of his father. He  imported rice, sugar and edible oils, as well as iron and steel rods. His big break came in 1990 when a friend informed him of an opportunity to do a deal with a government-owned steel company.
Production at the Delta Steel Company had been beggared by the Nigerian government’s decision to reduce grants. The company was considering approaching private business to finance the procurement of raw materials and Rabiu saw the opportunity. The deal needed approval from the government. After approaching the minister of steel, who hailed from Rabiu’s home state, he was asked to finance the project.
“They only wanted three serious companies to participate because they did not want to shut down Delta Steel. He went to the president and managed to get a special allocation to Delta Steel, but it wasn’t enough. So, he asked if we would be able to get counter funding, and I said ‘of course’. We approached First Bank and we showed them the proposal at the time and they said they would need us to put in our equity.”
“We were able to get the business which was worth almost $20 million at the time, but the idea was that we were importing their raw materials to the tune of 25,000 to 30,000 tons per month, and instead of them paying us back in cash, they gave us the processed products. We didn’t want to collect money because at the time you would sometimes never get it.”
The payment method was favorable for Rabiu and his company because the price of the products was government controlled.
“I think it was around $6.3 from the company, but around $90 in the open market. So it was quite a good opportunity for us and we made quite a bit of money.”
By 1992, a regime change came and the honeymoon was over. With the substantial profits he had made from the steel venture, Rabiu invested in Tropic Commercial Bank, which operated in Nigeria. He became the chairman of the bank after buying a majority shareholding.
In 1995, BUA acquired Nigeria Oil Mills, which was a peanut processing company in Kano, for more than $20 million. The previous owners had offered BUA the business based on their status as a player in the edible oils business. Two years later, BUA Flour Mills’ first factory was established in Lagos. The Kano flour factory was launched in 1998. Thereafter, BUA set up its sugar refinery in Lagos. The 2,000 metric ton (MT) per day capacity plant is the second largest refinery in West Africa, after the Dangote Sugar refinery, which produces an estimated 2,400MT per day.
It’s a hot morning in Port Harcourt, on the coast of Nigeria when FORBES AFRICA visits one of Rabiu’s biggest projects, the BUA Mixed Development, which includes: a sugar refinery with a production capacity of 2,000 tons per day and a 65,000MT storage; a flour mill; a pasta, semolina and rice mill. In the capital, Abuja, Rabiu’s BUA Group has a huge housing project of 200 homes to be completed by early next year.
“He is very analytical, balanced and always calm under stressful situations. In spite of being experienced, he is always willing to learn more,” says Engr Olumo, BUA Group’s project co-ordinator in the eastern region.
“It has been wonderful seeing the company grow and prosper. Mr Rabiu is very approachable and reasonable. We have a team of 14 people working in the London office and we all feel as if we are a family. We are treated with the utmost respect. All employees approach Mr Rabiu on a first name basis,” says Rajan Sharma, the trade finance manager at Rabiu’s equipment and material procurement company, NOM UK.
Rabiu has often been compared to Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, due to the fact that most of their businesses operate in the same sectors. He dismisses talk of any competition between himself and Dangote, pointing out that their mutual interests in certain sectors derives from the inclinations of the patriarchs of their families.
“We are both from Kano and our parents were doing more or less the same kind of business, so we grew up in the trading environment. My dad had been doing rice, sugar and edible oil for a very long time. Aliko’s granduncle, Sanusi Dantata, at one time was the biggest trader in terms of imports in Kano State,” he says.
“We’ve known each other since childhood. Although people seem to think that we are doing the sort of business that Aliko is doing, I keep telling them that this is a business that my family has been involved in before Aliko even started.”
BUA’s sugar venture was a cash cow. The company was able to reap huge margins due to the difference in duties for imports of raw sugar, which was 5%, and that of finished, or white, sugar, which is 50%. With the money he made from this business, the amount of which he declines to reveal, Rabiu cast his eye further.
His research revealed that the cement business would offer good returns on investment. The first step was to secure a license to import cement. The market for cement in the country was characterized by high price through scarcity, which was due to the fact that few companies held licences to import. Conditions for obtaining the license included that the interested company must have a terminal where the raw cement would be processed and bagged, as well as have a plant in Nigeria where production is taking place, or be in the process of building one.
BUA set out to meet the requirements, starting with the acquisition of the Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) for nearly $100 million from Scancem International in 2007. The next goal was to procure the terminal. Since it would have taken over a year to build one, Rabiu made the smart move to acquire a floating terminal. He approached the then president, Umaru Musa Yar’adua, to secure the approval. The terminal secured the import license.
Production on this platform was carried out until last year when the government restricted imports following the launch of Dangote’s $1 billion cement plant in Ibese, Nigeria. Although Rabiu disagrees with the government’s decision, he says he was prepared for it.
“When the Ibese plant was commissioned, the government decided that that there was enough production capacity in Nigeria and there will be no need for imports. I still do not agree with that.”
“We knew it was coming, so we decided to put up our own plant. Part of what we acquired from Scancem was a small grinding plant in Edo State, which is called Edo Cement, but then with a large limestone deposit. The plant is being built as we speak and will be delivered next year. It is a 3-million ton plant and costs a little over $500 million. At the same time, we are also looking at Ilaro, west Nigeria; in fact I am going to China next week for a meeting with CDMI, a Chinese cement plant manufacturer, to put up another plant in Ilaro. We want to capture part of the south western market, because that is the biggest market in Nigeria today.”
Rabiu believes that Nigerian demand is greater than estimated. He points out that when the additional supply is added and the price is adjusted further, latent demand will be unlocked.
“Nigeria has around 170 million people and the production capacity that the country has is about 20 million, maybe 22 million tons. So that gives us about 117 kilograms per head. Nigeria is so low in relation to other African countries, in terms of consumption per head. It has to go up and I am looking at a minimum of 250 kilograms per head in the next three to four years. I think it will happen and we are looking at least at a minimum of 35 to 40 million tons capacity,” he says.
“The price of cement in Nigeria is probably the highest anywhere in the world, apart from possibly Zambia, at $8.80 per bag, which is $173 per ton. It’s around $40 anywhere else in the world; why should it be $170? It doesn’t make sense at all.”
“Everybody says we have issues with infrastructure and power; it’s nonsense. Power is cheap in Nigeria. Gas is cheap. We had to put up a power plant at Edo Cement, which is about $60 to $70 million. Capital expenditure is there, and it’s quite a bit of money. But, it costs you no more than $20 million a year for gas and it is your biggest cost in a cement plant,” he says.
Rabiu wants to see the price of products decrease so that demand will increase.
“The moment we have a price that is more affordable, demand is going to shoot up. Today cement is around $8 per bag. If we are able to sell it at $6.20, you will see demand shooting up by at least 20% every year. In five years, production will more than double.”
While cement has been a key focus of the group’s activities in recent years, Rabiu also has his eyes on the steel industry.
“In sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria is the largest importer of steel and steel products, especially pipes, flat sheets and reinforcements, yet we do not have an integrated steel plant in the country.”
Plans are also being made to invest more in expanding the sugar business to exploit opportunities that have been created by the federal government’s implementation of a national sugar master plan.
“We want to ensure that we have at least 30,000 hectares cultivated for sugar plantation in the next three years. We have the Lafiaji sugar plantation, which we bought from the government around four years ago, but it is only around 15,000 hectares, so we are trying to develop another 30,000 hectares.”
“We believe the demand for sugar will go up simply because of the price. Sugar is still around $400. The cost of production, if you have a plantation, is probably around $150 per ton to produce locally. Imagine the demand if that happens. We should be able to supply the entire region with sugar, we will look to take the West African market,” he says.
For a man who can easily afford the best in life—he has a Bentley and Aston Martin parked in his courtyard—Rabiu’s simplicity is remarkable. He speaks excitedly about going to see American jazz singer Stacey Kent play whenever she performs in London. The man is also a movie buff and is always on the lookout for blockbuster releases. With a whiff of triumph, he declares that he just saw the new biographical drama Diana, which captures the last two years of the life of the late Princess of Wales.
Rabiu exudes an aura of a fulfilment. He gives the impression of one who values his achievements and success, but does not wear it on his sleeve. From being born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Rabiu—Africa’s newest billionaire—has carved out his own place in the continent’s business history.

The Jet Setter  Who Owns A $62 Million Slice Of Britain

It is a chilly Friday morning in New York and I am sitting in the back of a black SUV on its way to pick up supermodel Alek Wek from her brownstone Brooklyn home. It was meant to be a glamor photo shoot in the wide open spaces of upstate New York with the supermodel-turned-businesswoman-turned-activist. The temperamental weather in New York had other ideas and simply would not let us be great outdoor Africans. A weather advisory warning of a snow blizzard had been issued. New Yorkers are overly sensitive about the weather for good reason; Hurricane Sandy had torn at the city earlier in the year. I took the cue from my New York crew and booked a studio close-to-home in Brooklyn to minimize travel and exposure to inclement weather.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31063 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A9124-232x300.jpeg" alt="" width="232" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A9124-232x300.jpeg 232w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A9124-300x388.jpeg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A9124-600x776.jpeg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A9124.jpeg 612w" sizes="(max-width: 232px) 100vw, 232px" />
Wek is as much a supermodel as she is the girl-next-door. She commands the runways in the name of fashion designers such as: Chanel, Hermes, Donna Karan, Christian Lacroix and Zac Posen. Her career has thrived in Paris, New York, Milan and London and she has also appeared on the covers of high-end fashion magazines such as Elle, Glamor, Cosmopolitan and Essence. She has also been the face of campaigns for Benetton, Kenzo and Saks Fifth Avenue.
No small feat for an African girl born in Wau, Sudan, now South Sudan, in 1977 to a family of nine. Speaking softly in her British accent, Wek talks of her life, between sips from the coffee cup clasped between her hands.
“Our careers define us to an extent, but then there’s you as a person. You are not born with that career even though you have it already in you. For most of us, and especially us African women, we have to overcome a lot of obstacles to get there. And even when you get there, however you define there for yourself, there is still more to accomplish.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31065 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A7868-300x225.jpeg" alt="" width="300" height="225" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A7868-300x225.jpeg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A7868-600x450.jpeg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A7868-768x576.jpeg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A7868.jpeg 864w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Despite the fact that she is one of Africa’s global icons, she has a pleasant disposition and we chat like old friends as the driver deftly drives us through the snowy roads to the studio.
That Wek has defied all beauty standards is obvious. Dressed in skinny jeans, layered tops, winter jacket and her trademark head scarf, she stands at 180cm tall, with short hair. Wek is from the Dinka tribe of South Sudan, with piercing, oval-shaped brown eyes, high cheek bones and teeth whiter than white. It is an understatement to say Wek’s features are striking: very model material in a nouveau kind of way.
“I came into the industry at a time when some people would say: ‘she’s odd, she’s weird, she’s bizarre.’ But I never saw myself that way and the true people, the legends, the talented, saw me.”
As Wek slips into a gown made by fellow African David Tlale, of Johannesburg, she also assumes her professional power. In front of the camera, she epitomizes the confidence of the new generation of African leaders.
Her head wrap is more than a fashion statement. It is a reminder of the place she came from, where her fragile frame survived only through incredible strength and resilience.
“I have gone through the civil war where we were barricaded in our house for three days because of the shootings and bombings. The scariest thing for me was feeling like there is nobody to protect you and nobody’s life is accounted for. I used to have nightmares when we fled to England. It took me some years to get over that.”
Wek has never forgotten these desperate days. As her fame rose, she found her voice to speak for the millions of huddled and vulnerable refugees around the world.
“I know firsthand what it feels like to walk for weeks and weeks. I know what it feels like to eat whatever you can find in the bush. I know what it is like to be voiceless,” she declares as she describes the journey she undertook as her family fled from rebel and government forces, when civil war raged in her hometown in 1985.
Wek arrived in London, aged 14, and was discovered soon after by a Models 1 scout in a South London market and has been a model ever since.
“I model in moderation now. It is not the quantity, but the quality of my work. I also want to make time and space for the next phase of my life. I would love to settle down, get married and have children.”
So much so, that Wek has scaled back her work so she can live a more grounded life. This year, she ended a five-year relationship.
“For him, it was more like a three-year relationship since I traveled a lot. I then realized that I have to live in the same country as the man in order for this marriage thing to happen!” Not one to pine for long, she is back in the dating scene and also dotes on a fox terrier by the name of Lil Bit.
Wek says her mother is a true African mother.
“Whenever I visit mom in England, and we sit down to have supper, the first question is always: ‘The babies?’ So, I get to practice with my Lil Bit,” laughs Wek.
At 36, she is a grown woman—an African woman with a strong sense of self and purpose in life.
“If anything, fashion and modeling has not only given me trips to the most exotic locations around the world, fantastic perks, stays in five-star hotels and expensive gifts. Most importantly, it has given me a platform with which to make a difference on important issues that matter to me.”
This stance earned Wek a position as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), in which she travels to war-torn nations.
In 2011, South Sudan split from the Sudan, as part of a 2005 peace agreement that ended decades of protracted war in the continent’s largest country.
“Freedom is so special and so precious,” she speaks cautiously, as if she were reliving her traumatic childhood.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-31066 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A8551-300x212.jpeg" alt="" width="300" height="212" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A8551-300x212.jpeg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A8551-600x424.jpeg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A8551-768x542.jpeg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/DONE_3T4A8551.jpeg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
For the first time, since she fled from the region with her family, the Sudanese refugee-turned-supermodel went back to South Sudan.
“Going back after South Sudan became independent was very emotional for me. I never really thought that we would attain independence. It was a very surreal moment for me,” she says fighting back tears.
She is guarded when I ask her to rate the new president of South Sudan, Salva Kii.
“It would be unfair to try to rate him so soon and I will tell you why. When someone has been in the bush for decades fighting a war and now has to make a considerable switch to lead the country, you have to cut him or her some slack.”
Wek is mindful that South Sudan is a collective effort—a collaboration among stakeholders including the government and citizens.
“I truly believe that it is our generation. Us. You and I and the rest of the continent and diaspora. We are the ones we have been waiting for.”   FL

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