Emmanuel Katongole is a brisk, no nonsense, entrepreneur with a powerful desk and a sharp suit. If you look closely, beneath his distinguished grey hair, you can see the traces of pain that steeled one of Uganda’s leading entrepreneurs.
Katongole watched his three elder sisters die for want of medical care. It is no coincidence that he has dedicated his life, as an entrepreneur, to making pills to fight two of Africa’s great killers: malaria and HIV/Aids.
“My elder sister got pregnant at 15 and died while giving birth, she bled to death because she couldn’t go to hospital. The other two died of HIV/Aids, leaving me alone. This is not only hearing of it, I saw it. So many other families have gone through this,” says Katongole.
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“It was an influence in this kind of business. I think about them often and now we see our medicines being made and thousands upon thousands surviving. That gives you a good feeling.”
To say Katongole grew up the hard way is an understatement. He was born in 1962 in the rural Mityana district in the hills of Uganda and spent most of his childhood herding goats and fighting off hyenas.
“We grew up right from childhood being independent and had to work to survive. That has grown with me,” he says.
Neither his father, nor his mother, could read nor write; his father worked as a laborer, his mother sold roasted maize by the side of the road. In 1965, Katongole senior moved the family to Kampala, in search of a better life, when he secured a job working as a night porter at the Palace of Kabaka – the seat of the King of Buganda. One day Katongole senior went to work, never to return.
“It is believed that he was caught in the gunfire that resulted from the soured relations between the Buganda kingdom and the central government at the time. We never saw him again,” says Katongole.
It meant more hardship for the family. Veronica Katongole had to make the tough decision to withdraw her three daughters from education so she could afford to pay for her son to go through school. Young Katongole did not wear shoes, ride in a vehicle nor switch on a light bulb until he won a scholarship to Namilyango College near Kampala. The hard work paid off and Katongole graduated from Makerere University – known in Kampala as the ivory tower – in statistics and applied economics. He got a job and began looking for areas of business not yet saturated. As it turned out, 1987 was a good year for entrepreneurs in Kampala. The Ugandan government was easing state controls and liberalizing the foreign exchange market.
Katongole saw that 1.5 million, out of 30 million, Ugandans were HIV positive. On top of this, malaria killed 300 people a day; the equivalent of an Airbus A340 crashing seven days a week, he says. In 1997, Katongole and five partners put in $5,000 each to found Quality Chemicals on a patch of dusty land on the poor fringes of Kampala. The first year was lean; the company turned over less than a million dollars.
“The turning point came in 2001. This is when the world became very tough about intellectual property and patents. When the World Trade Organization came in, we saw this as an opportunity. Uganda was among 16 of the poorest of the poor nations made exempt. Patented medicines were expensive &#8211; do you allow poor people to die because of patents?”
It cleared the way for Quality Chemicals to manufacture six million pills a day to tackle both deadly diseases. The coup was a joint venture, in 2005, with Indian pharmaceutical giant, Cipla, which was looking for a foothold in the continent. This poured capital and expertise into the company and by 2013 turnover was $65 million; this year, the accountants project $76 million. In November, Cipla spent $15 million on increasing its stake to 51%. Katongole and his fellow five founders retain 23%.
It is a late autumn morning in the outskirts of Kampala and Quality Chemicals is humming. Outside there are goats grazing in the sun, it is nearly noon and more than 30 degrees Celsius; inside it is cool and busy. Hundreds of people in white coats are hard at work making the handfuls of pills that can be the difference between life and death for a village full of people.
The company exports to Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and South Sudan. It is far from an easy business.
“The infrastructure problems of the country notwithstanding, we have problem with access to markets. You know, we have got a lot of donor products coming in and these hinder the development potential of our market. There are also subsidies given by other countries which hurt our market. Then there is the power shortage. It is not so much of a big problem since we bought our own generator,” says Katongole.
“We could do better, but if you compare what is happening globally, there has been a concerted effort by the state to sustain the economy. Inflation has been between 8 and 12 percent for many years; that is not bad for African countries. If you look at the exchange rate, it is largely under control, fluctuations here and there, but not bad. Interest rates, of 20 to 24 percent, are relatively stable, but they are high. Banks are helpful, but the economy is relatively small.”
Despite this, Quality Chemicals is thinking big.
“Our dream is to be the number one company in our field in Africa. For now, the problem of malaria and aids is still big – we are also looking at making pills to tackle cancer and hypertension. These are the serious diseases we are thinking about.”
The next thought will be the completion of a second factory that will increase the workforce to 700.
“I tell you I always believe that every generation has its revolution and the revolution of our generation is entrepreneurship. A lot can be done. Well-handled entrepreneurship can do so much,” says Katongole.
This confident man has one tinge of regret; that he never had the chance to offer his hard working mother more of the fruits of his success. Veronica Katongole died of skin cancer in 2002. Among her last wishes were for her son to build an iron sheet roofed house for her – the family had grown up under mud and wattle. The second was that she wanted her funeral to be led by a Catholic priest.
The first request was built in Katongole’s first year of work; the second was led by the Archbishop of Kampala.
In a tribute to his mother, Katongole has launched bottled water, called Vero after her, where the proceeds go to charity, in her honor. Proof, that the legacy of an entrepreneur can be far more than money.
<h4>In The Business Of Caring</h4>
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In Uganda entrepreneurs are known for the money they have made but their reputations are often tainted with rumors of dishonest practices and dealings that helped pave their path to success. This is not the case when you mention Emmanuel Katongole in Uganda’s business community.
Katongole is widely recognized for his social entrepreneurship, philanthropy and unrelenting spirit. For someone who had to team up with his illiterate mother to sell local liquor to earn school fees, it is inspirational to now see him as a member of the Initiative for Global Development (IGD), a group that aims to reduce poverty worldwide and consists of successful business leaders from Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States (US).
Katongole is part of the esteemed company of former secretaries of state of the United States Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell, who co-chair the governing council of IGD.
Back in 1997, Katongole, along with five colleagues, founded Quality Chemicals. It grew to become the only company in sub-Saharan Africa that manufactures triple-combination antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. Today, the company manufactures and sells antiretroviral and antimalarial drugs. Given the crippling effects of malaria and HIV/Aids on the continent, Katongole has made a significant contribution towards reversing the effects of these diseases.
There have been accusations of him being too close to the Ugandan government and subsequently using his close connections to get ahead in business. Others, however, argue that the scourge of HIV/Aids and malaria has long been a major priority for the Ugandan government and any major player within that sphere would require a collaborative relationship with them.
Besides Quality Chemicals, Katongole founded Vero Mineral Water, in memory of his late mother, Veronica.
The business commits 10% of its proceeds towards social development causes such as education. For Katongole, entrepreneurship should solve society’s most pressing challenges and his businesses are testimony to this.
His background is one of extreme poverty and disease. He used this as inspiration to build an enterprise that not only creates wealth but confronts the twin evils of poverty and disease within its community. Katongole is the district governor of the Rotary Club in Tanzania and Uganda, which provides humanitarian services in that region of Africa.
“I think he has done a lot for Rotary and that is a good thing,” says Ugandan business mogul Patrick Bitature.
He adds that although Katongole has achieved a lot as an entrepreneur, he is bound to achieve a lot more in future.
“He is going places,” says Bitature.
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The Pain And Drive That Turned $5,000 Into $65 Million A Year

Fervently chasing after a passion that took me quite long to identify.”
This is what Affiong Williams’ Twitter profile reads. Spend a day with the 28-year-old entrepreneur and you believe it’s not just a clever line, but the story of her life. Her first job out of college may have been in the corporate sector, but for Williams, her passion for business was one she couldn’t ignore. It had tugged at her since she was a child growing up in Nigeria.
She was only six when with the help of her cousin she cooked and sold food to her neighborhood. By second year in college, she had already dabbled in a few odd businesses, such as buying and selling handbags on campus. She left Nigeria when she was 11, spending most of her formative years in South Africa. College was a defining time. It was here she realized what she didn’t want to do.
With a bachelor’s degree in physiology and psychology, she wanted to switch to medicine but realized her strength was business. The post graduate degree she pursued in business administration at the Witwatersrand Business School in Johannesburg was invaluable.
Williams acquired a job with an entrepreneurship incubator, which exposed her to the world of start-ups and businesses. Here, she could apply all the theory she had learned, spending four years, starting as an intern, ending as a portfolio manager. She looked at services that would help entrepreneurs grow across different sectors. It awakened her innate flair.
“I was most inspired by the entrepreneurs. In any economy, small to medium enterprises create the most jobs. I told myself this is what I want to do.”
Williams started researching business ideas and the sectors that inspired her. The South African economy was highly-developed and she knew her competitive advantage, being a foreigner, was also limited, so she veered towards Nigeria.
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“Agriculture was becoming very topical. I started reading up and asking questions,” she says.
Why is there so much inefficiency? Why is there so much waste? Why are fruits rotten? Why can’t we create finished goods? Why do Nigerian products look unappealing? What is stopping Nigerian products from being sold anywhere in the world? A few more pertinent questions and it was the light bulb moment she had been waiting for.
“I decided this is the sector I wanted to get into. I also knew agriculture is a big job creator. I wanted to make Nigerian finished products look good, I wanted to use up our raw materials, and employ a lot of people. I became obsessed. I read about fruit juices, cassava, cash crops etc, and moved into fruit.”
Capital was the next issue.
“I looked at the capital required for food processing. I started figuring out cost in terms of investment. I then stumbled upon [the idea of selling] dried fruits and realized very few people were doing this. It was not that expensive and there were not that many healthy options out there.”
In February 2012, determined to win a government entrepreneurship grant, Williams made the decision to move to Lagos.
“I knew I would win this N10 million (just over $60,000) grant that was going to be my source of capital. I traveled to Nigeria for a second round of applications and made a decision to move back, because I was so sure I would win this grant,” she says.
But did she?
“I did not. My name was not called.”
It was a setback, but Williams had it mapped out. With her savings of $15,000, she started on what was a sink-or-swim journey into a tough market that required more analysis. She drew from her experiences.
She started understanding the value chain better, and engaged in some market-research to see what consumers thought of her dried fruit product. With a tighter rein on funds, it was time to focus on the market.
“Lagos is a hugely urbanized city with a growing middle class and this is where we focused the business. We found a fair percentage of exposed and well-traveled Lagosians already familiar with the product,” she says of the growing number of health-conscious Nigerians, who had little or no time on their hands. Food choices available on the go were a major determinant of health trends.
“Because we are a food product, we are lucky. People can use an immediate taste test to prove whether they like it or not. For our core market, it’s an affordable product,” says Williams. The epiphany may have taken a while, but it was the formula she required.
Agriculture is the most important sector in the Nigerian economy and contributes up to 35% of the country’s GDP. Its 170 million population represents a large domestic market that can support and sustain local production and processing. Unfortunately, limited collaboration exists across regional value chains.
As agribusiness plays a role in jump-starting economic transformation through development of agro-based industries, successful agribusiness investments stimulate growth by providing new markets and developing an input system. This hadn’t escaped Williams’ notice.
She introduced ReelFruit, a healthy range of snacks with variants of mango and pineapple, into the Nigerian market. These are preservative-free fresh tropical fruits, dried and ready for snacking. Its target market is mainly working women, and more products are being developed: a fruit and nut mix, a cashew brand, health drink and kids’ candy. Over the past year, ReelFruit has sold in 62 locations in Nigeria.
“From a business perspective, it made sense, because we are then not exporting raw materials but actually finishing the products here. And if markets can be found for them locally or overseas, then, that’s a win. I found a partner in Ghana to produce on my behalf. They provide the finished product. Now, we get bulk products and are responsible for the packaging. In March 2013, we started selling finished products,” she says.
William’s business has also garnered recognition. She won the BiD Network Women in Business Challenge award in the Netherlands in 2013, and also the top prize for Creative Focus Africa. What inspires her?
“The can-do attitude of Nigerians. There are so many norms and misconceptions about the African woman. As an entrepreneur, despite all these, if you are passionate enough, you will always find a way around it. Having a vision and purpose is what pushed me the most to start a business,” she says.

Little Bites Of Lagos

When entrepreneur Maureen Dlamini took over as CEO of the Chamber of Mines of Zambia (CMZ), she had no idea what she was getting into. It’s arguably the toughest job in Zambia; running the lifeblood of the country – copper mining. Dlamini keeps the flow of private investors and government in line. What’s more, until two weeks into the job, she’d never been down a mine.
“It was 14 January, two weeks after I began as CEO, that I had my first taste of the mines. I was in awe. I looked at the size of the machinery and the size of the pit. It gave me a different perspective of the mines. Actually seeing it, I had a greater respect for investors. You really don’t know that you will get the return you anticipated. You are dealing with nature, you could have disasters, you could have flooding. To have enough faith to invest $2 billion when your return is not immediate, is something I learned to respect,” she says in her office in Lusaka.
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Copper. It is the industry that died and came back to life. Zambia has been exporting since the 1920s, but it’s been a rollercoaster ride complicated with colonial privatization, nationalization, and then privatization again.
According to the World Bank, Zambia has the largest known reserves of copper in Africa, 6% of the world resource. It means businesses are flocking to Zambia as if it were the days of the 1849 California Gold Rush.
For Dlamini, the job in mining is a far cry from what most people expected of her, she says. She worked in finance with the likes of Barclays, First Line of Africa and was the former Executive Head of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s (JSE) Africa Board before moving to home, Zambia.
In Lusaka, she went into business with her brother to run Zambezi Airlines, a private airline, but the business failed to take off. Controversially, its operations were shut down by the government citing safety concerns. It went bankrupt in 2012 and Dlamini was thrown out.
“My agent just called me and said there was a job…I said yes I’ll try it.”
This was how Dlamini took the position of CEO of the CMZ; the rest was history. Dlamini even had to put her dreams of becoming an interior decorator on hold to take up the position.
“My real passion is interior decorating. I love event management. From here I could do it and work until 4AM. I would love to be able to do it at some time at my own pace. My friends say to me I love to challenge myself, and maybe that’s why I am in the mining sector,” she says.
Her first step was to Kansanshi mine, in Solwezi in the North Western Province. She traded arranging furniture to begin her new job in a hard hat and overalls. Now back in Lusaka, she wears a suit and is making a mark in the male-dominated industry.
“After a while, you get used to it. I think my background, especially in the JSE, is that I don’t feel the pressure. I had good mentors. If you are not going to do something don’t string me along. Don’t sit quietly and give me excuses later on. It’s just a waste of time and money.”
Kansanshi’s is a story of good news and the bad. Thanks to copper, Solwezi has become one of Africa’s fastest growing towns in a few short years. It was once a tiny village on the northern borders of Zambia 16 kilometers from the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo, 581 kilometers from Lusaka, and a million miles from the rest of the world.
According to research by the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), mining is on the rise in 2012, 32% of tax revenue collected was from mining; in 2008, the percentage was half that. The bad news is that the mines have to deal with lack of infrastructure and skills development, says Dlamini.
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“It needs a combined effort, not just the mines. The local authority needs to play a significant role in terms of town planning, in terms of creating social services. If you look at the mines there, Solwezi is one of the richest authorities in terms of revenue from mining authorities. But the challenge is we don’t know if that money is remaining in Solwezi or is dispersed to other towns in the country. The infrastructure in Solwezi is non-existent. Everything is clustered around one street, because there is a lot of emigration, there are a lot of social evils coming into the town,”
says Dlamini.
According to Dlamini, the reliability of data collection from both government and private sectors is also hampering investors. The Zambian government records mining GDP contribution to be at 8% when it should be 12% when researched by the ICMM, she says.
“Our biggest challenge is changing the perception of the mines. We need to get the facts straight. This is the backbone of the economy. At the end of the day, it’s finding that balance where we don’t irritate investors and irritate the government,” she says.
Despite its challenges, Zambia has won back its claim to be the copper power house of Africa. At the helm is Dlamini. She might be new to the industry but she knows all about making money, taking risks and losing it all. There is no doubt that the mining companies and government will find her one tough nut to crack.

The Woman With  the toughest job

Alpesh Patel has a sharp eye for business and a silver tongue. It’s easy to believe the mobile entrepreneur is king of the corporate jungle. What’s hard to believe is that he was born in a real jungle when his parents were on a Safari in Uganda.
“So I’m a real bush baby,” jokes Patel in the CNBC studios, a few blocks away from his home in Sandton, South Africa.
Patel is the founder of Mi-Group. He’s sold over 1.5 million of Africa’s first branded smart phones, the Mi-Fone. He’s also launched a credit card for Africans with Visa, MasterCard and Western Union.
The man, whose company generates revenue of $20 million, has been on a journey longer than the Great Migration of the Masai Mara. Patel grew up in Uganda among a family of cinema owners. His grandfather bought the Odium Franchise. As part of the deal the likes of Steve McQueen and John Wayne came on safari holidays and shared lunches with them.
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It was cruel fate that ripped this lavish lifestyle from his family in 1972. Idi Amin, the then president of Uganda, ordered the expulsion of the country&#8217;s Indian and Pakistani minority. Within 90 days, with nothing more than the clothes on their back, a $100 and a couple of pillows, Patel’s family were marooned. They flew to Britain, bound for a detention center along with 27,000 other Indians.
“I went from a lifestyle of being in the cinema to my mother working three jobs and my father as a state worker. The United Kingdom was not a very friendly place for us,” he says.
It did bring fame, says Patel. The BBC filmed him holding his blanket as he left the plane; the scene became an iconic shot throughout the world.
Patel claims entrepreneurship is in his blood. At school he would sell leather handbags, brought back from Morocco on holidays, to Nigerian vendors in London. After graduation, Africa drew him back; this time selling first generation mobile phones. Patel describes them as the giant bricks of the 1990s. His big break came with an order for 183 cell phones from a businessman in China. The only provision for the deal was that he had to be there to hand over the box. He saw a gap in the market and flew to Asia to sell more. By the age of 23, Patel made his first million, being one of the first people to sell mobile devices in that continent.
His worst day was on the horizon. A combination of a lavish lifestyle in Hong Kong and competition as big mobile brands woke up meant Patel’s days were numbered. Mobile giant Nokia came to China in 1993. The stiff competition sucked Patel’s market dry, he says.
“I was young. My biggest mistake was not investing in the business. I thought I could keep going the way I was. I was a millionaire at 23, but I lost it all. It kind of wakes you up. If you are not mature enough to handle that oncoming challenge you immediately self-destruct and that’s what happened to me. You wonder how you are going to take on the big guys. You lose faith. Everything starts going bad. Deals wouldn’t work out. Suppliers would come in with something cheaper. My income was getting less; meanwhile my lifestyle was still being maintained. Savings started dwindling.”
Although I was offered a lot of opportunities at the time, I didn’t see them. I was offered one of the first chain stores in Hong Kong for internet cafes, and I was like ‘what is that?’ It’s opportunities that you get presented that you don’t have the vision to take. If you are the first to sell phones in China you should be the first to do many other things. But I didn’t,” he says.
Patel returned to South Africa with nothing. He worked his way around the telecommunications arena as a manager for Motorola and the Harris Radio Corporation.
“Every day is my worst day. The easiest day was yesterday. Problems come all the time but I looked at them as opportunities to fix,” he says.
Patel’s biggest lesson he learned was that he needed to sell like a corporate.
“I went back to the basics. I was selling products with nothing but a suitcase and a bunch of brochures&#8230; In three years I sold five million units in Africa with Motorola. It was tough… I think it’s what I needed. I never had that corporate experience. To be where we are today you need to have some experience. Unless you are a fantastically talented singer, you need to get some training somewhere to know how the system works,” he says.
Armed with the knowledge of the African market, Patel launched his own company in 2008, the Mi-Fone brand of mobile devices; a new name in a fast-growing emerging market. They sold 200,000 units in the first year. In 2013, they have sold over a million.
“I put my life savings into it. I’m my own angel investor. We don’t have any private equity. We are living proof that you can build a business today in Africa, a pan-African business, with zero,” he says.
With his cell phone brand growing, Patel is not done. Last year, he launched a Mi-Card credit card. Patel says his plan is simple: if you want to give people power, give them a cell phone in the one hand and a credit card in the other.
“Despite the millions that are made in this market, [Africa] it is still seen as a dumping ground for older technology. One of the biggest challenges we face is being an unknown brand in Africa. There is a perception that it’s a cheap Chinese phone, but Apple is also made in China. Apple is so successful because they have created a brand experience. My mission is to create a brand that caters for mass-market African consumers as opposed to rich guys in the West,” he says.
Beaten and bloodied, Patel is as tenacious and as rugged as the Ugandan bush he was born in.

Born In The Bush,  Raised In The Corporate Jungle

It’s Friday morning, just after 8AM. A blanket of clouds fills the sky over a hot and humid morning in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo. On the pavement of Martires da Machava Avenue, everyone wants to get a newspaper but there are not enough to go around. Near the entrance to the yard, a knot of people tussle over a diminishing pack of newspapers.
A few minutes later, an old man dressed in a grey suit pulls up in a silver Range Rover Sport to jump out and grab his newspaper.
This happens every Friday because in Maputo, everyone wants to know. Verdade, which means the truth in Portuguese, is a free newspaper in more ways than one. It is a newspaper that often criticizes and upsets the authorities.
On this particular Friday, the paper publishes comments written by readers on a wall outside the Verdade offices, saying the people are not happy the president of the Democratic Movement for Mozambique, Daviz Simango, won the municipal elections.
Erik Charas, an electrical and mechanical engineer turned entrepreneur, started Verdade six years ago, which appears to be flourishing in a world where newspapers are dying. Verdade is Mozambique’s best read newspaper.
Charas believes that Verdade can be a tool of change in his country’s fight against poverty.
“I thought I’d do greater good for my country than contributing to the bottom line of a company,” says Charas.
Unlike many developed countries where information flows like water, in Mozambique newspapers are expensive and scarce.
Verdade skirts politics and concentrates on the issues of the people: electricity prices; crime; HIV/AIDs and bread subsidies. It receives about 5,000 SMSes a month for a section that focuses on sex and health. The paper also touches on entertainment, nightlife and lifestyle in Maputo.
What also makes this newspaper popular is that it publishes Facebook comments from its readers.
Charas is an unlikely newspaper baron. After leaving his engineering job, he went on to teach at a university in Mozambique before spending nine years at the Graça Machel Foundation.
He left the foundation to try and fail as an entrepreneur. His stint at the foundation was successful and he was signing million-dollar cheques for the projects it ran. He left without having any plan whatsoever.
He launched his own company with various sub-companies within it, including infrastructure, telecoms, finance and transportation. He founded Verdade in 2008 with around $500,000 that he had raised from previous business ventures and private investments.
Verdade appeared to be an outlandish idea, but exploited a loophole in the market left by official and government newspapers, which are not popular with the people.
When it was launched, Charas says the goal was to reach around 50% of the literate population in six years, but sights had to be lowered. There are roughly 12 million people in Mozambique who can read and write. However, according to Charas, Verdade is read by a mere million people, 10 times more than any other official newspaper in Mozambique.
Back at Martires da Machava Avenue, workers distribute newspapers from a garage at the back of a house where 10 journalists work. Verdade workers hand out around 5,000 copies from the pavement outside. Fifty drivers deliver the paper across the country using bright yellow txopelas (tuk-tuks) in Verdade branding. About 2,000 copies are delivered in Nampula; Quelimane receives about 1,000; Pemba 200 and 100 in Bilene. About 1,300 newspapers are flown to Chimoio and Inhambane.
In some of these cities, the paper is distributed on street corners and bus stops.
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing for this popular newspaper. In 2013, Verdade saw sales dropping and experienced a loss of 20% in advertising renewals.
“A lot of our renewals say they got calls from officials saying ‘oh you can’t advertise in that paper—it gets critical’,” says Charas.
The print run was cut from 50,000 to 20,000.
“We want to print more papers for the rural areas, rather than for the city dwellers who have internet and can access the newspaper using their phones,” he says.
As for the future? Charas says they would like to associate Verdade with advertisements that people trust and do not give a false message. The 32-paged newspaper has almost no advertisements. Charas says newspaper ads will only get the thumbs up once they have gone through screening for truthfulness in its message.
Charas says he would only like to associate the newspaper with advertising that is truthful because readers trust and believe in the Verdade brand, which he says is linked to advertising.
“We are taking the trust our readers have put in us to a new stage. And you might ask us why… We’ve built a very strong brand that people trust and identify with… People look at it beyond just a newspaper title. It’s part of their voice and people contribute to it.”
“We’re taking responsibility of knowing that if I say that this water is good for you, people will totally trust that and move in mass towards one product or one process. We’ve seen that with the elections. We measured it. We went through the process of doing research about it. We worked with Paul Collier from Oxford University. They did research on the impact of information that gets carried through our newspaper [and the effect it] has on people’s actions and you could tell that [Verdade] really does&#8230;,” says Charas.
Another exciting venture is that the company bought a huge printer in northern Mozambique, which is part of the expansion for Verdade. The people in this part of the country often threaten Verdade employees, demanding the right to know the truth. The paper is currently printed in Nelspruit, South Africa.
Despite the harassment to advertisers and nearly losing revenues through advertising that could force the newspaper to shut down, Charas says Verdade will not go down without a fight.
“If we have to sink while telling the truth, so be it,” he says.

The Truth Hurts

It all started with a beer television advertisement. It shows a dreamer, called Vuyo, who starts selling boerewors (traditional sausages) rolls on the streets and becomes a global brand; ending with a party on his yacht.
Kubheka was impressed and did a bit of research, only to find out that the Vuyo’s brand and the character was fiction. He swiftly trademarked the name Vuyo’s and opened a restaurant based on the advert. The unintended consequence was that the ad was building the Vuyo’s brand.
“I saw the ad like everyone else. And I thought that’s actually a good ad. But for me it was such a positive story. It’s like true entrepreneurship starting from grass roots,” says Kubheka.
At the time, he was running a small IT and software firm called Notsi Group for five years, with a partner, following a seven year stint at Microsoft. This IT geek left his desktop to focus on the restaurant, with little knowledge about the food business.
“It’s one of those things where I literally saw an opportunity and I thought to myself, one can work their entire career and not build up that amount of branding needed that South African Breweries was putting into this thing [the television beer advertisement]. It was sitting there and nobody was doing anything about it. I think that was a compelling enough reason to go into an industry I didn’t know,” says Kubheka.
The entrepreneur started by selling at outdoor events, but this was too small for him. Like Vuyo, he dreamed bigger. Kubheka decided to move away from mobile units.
He went back to the advert with the premise of dreaming big. So naturally, the next step was to open a restaurant. He was turned away seven times by a landlord who eventually gave Kubheka the contract for a property located opposite the University of the Witwatersrand, one of the biggest universities in South Africa, a spot which would bring in the numbers. It was the same university in Johannesburg where he completed his IT and Master’s degree.
“Surprisingly most of my customers are the working class. They want to leave the office and go somewhere clean and uncrowded. In Braamfontein there are not many areas where you can have a fast casual dining experience,” says Kubheka.
He opened his restaurant in December 2012 to much fanfare and even ordered a flurry of artificial snow. This was a strange detail, but he claims it was to attract attention to the red and white restaurant. This was one of the dreams he had inked on a cupboard in his bedroom while growing up.
In high school, Kubheka wrote down a projected timeline for his goals on his wardrobe door: the year he would finish his final year of high school, own a car and make his first million. He has now achieved all of that.
Today, when you walk into the restroom at Vuyo’s, you are flanked by two walls full of graffiti, which might give you the impression that the place is not well looked after, but look more closely. In between all those scribbles and graphics are 10 of Kubheka’s goals for the restaurant: By 2018, he hopes to be FORBES AFRICA’s person of the year. By 2022, he wants to make Vuyo’s the number one global brand, and also to have opened around 1,000 stores all over the world a year before that.
He wants to make South African food world renowned and build something that lasts.
“One of my frustrations about the country is that there is no good South African restaurant that is franchised or gone global that sells good boerewors, dumplings or samp. There are none. More importantly, I just want South African food to be thought of no different from when you go to an Italian, French or Chinese restaurant and the like,” he says.
The 37 year old has achieved one of his first goals written on the wall. Vuyo’s signed a deal to have 300 branded mobile units outside Spar outlets, a grocery retailer, across the country. He says if each vendor sells 50 boerewors rolls at $1.9 each a day, they would make a net income of $1,160 a month.
“My big dream is to make other big dreamers, like guys who have a braai next to the stadium, so we can give them branded Vuyo’s carts for no upfront capital outlay. To me that’s what it’s about, to give other people a leg up. I had one or two leg ups on my journey,” says Kubheka.
In early November, Kubheka says they had started rolling out the mobile units at Spars in Johannesburg, while work is underway to open a second store in Bloemfontein, in South Africa’s Free State province.
At the main restaurant, they serve various traditional South African dishes ranging from pap, stews, morogo (African spinach), dumplings, samp and koeksisters.
“Our vision is simple. We want to make South African cuisines world class. And that’s how we’re going to change the world,” he says.
As lunchtime approaches and the restaurant starts filling up, Kubheka’s senses intensify. He looks around to see if customers are happy and whether they have received their food.
Kubheka is doing his best to make the Vuyo’s brand a success. Between his busy schedule of managing the restaurant, he even has time to have lunch with Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex and third son of Queen Elizabeth the second. He also presented his business model to Britain’s headline-grabbing billionaire Richard Branson.
“He was impressed with my business model and he is keen to invest in us [Vuyo’s]. We are busy with the due diligence,” says Kubheka.
This young entrepreneur is certainly not just a big dreamer and he is not resting on his laurels. He is too busy making strides in building Vuyo’s as the number one global brand.

Business On A Roll

She is a talk show host, TV producer, media personality and entrepreneur. With the success of her talk show Moments with Mo, Mosunmola ‘Mo’ Abudu is often described as Africa’s own ‘Queen of Talk’.
At a glamorous launch of her Ebony Life TV channel in Lagos, Nigeria, in July, Forbes recognized Abudu as the first woman on the continent to own a pan-African TV channel. With Ebony Life, Abudu hopes to change perceptions of Africa, by showcasing the diversity of the continent and celebrating Africans who are making their mark.
“We believe it’s time to present a different Africa, one never seen before,” she explains.
Abudu was born in London to Nigerian parents. She worked for several corporate giants, including Exxon Mobil, before establishing a human resources consultancy, Vic Lawrence and Associates.
With her passion for media, however, it wasn’t long before she launched on her own television program. Abudu lives by the mantra, ‘If you think it, you can do it’. Her program, is the first daily talk show in Africa to be syndicated across the continent. It focuses on a variety of topics from lifestyle and healthcare to politics and culture.
To date, Abudu has hosted many high-profile people and dignitaries, including former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo.
“I remember Hillary Clinton saying to me, ‘People like you have to make a difference by creating a different reality of Africa’. Growing up as an African child in the UK, I remember vividly how I always had to defend who I was as an African. Even in later years… asking people about their perception of Africa, I was shocked at the word associations used to describe our continent, ‘famine, safari, Oxfam and HIV’.”
Abudu says Ebony TV was just an idea but the start-up sum of $15 million seemed insurmountable. However, she did not let her fears deter her.
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“The sheer reality is that there are millions of people who have done great things and started out with nothing except the idea. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas, passion, and ideals. And don’t think that anyone is too different or too insignificant to help,” she advises.
It took Abudu four years of planning, presentations and looking for investors to get Ebony TV off the ground. “This was my idea, my passion and I was determined to succeed.”
The media mogul describes Africa as a “brand of opportunities, where you have the freedom to create whatever you want, because you will always find talent and people willing to help you”.
“On a continent growing fast in terms of GDP and a massive middle class, particularly in Nigeria, challenges must be looked at as opportunities. I couldn’t have achieved this anywhere else,” she says.
She hopes her achievements will inspire other women entrepreneurs.
“Women have dreams, but we tend to hold ourselves back and are our own worst enemy at times. We place ourselves last and put our dreams on hold out of fear and the belief that we can’t do it. We also tend to put other women down; it’s unfortunately a global thing. We need to learn to support each other and celebrate our success.”
She may be a high-flyer in the media industry but Abudu is first and foremost a woman. She believes women have a responsibility to maintain balance in their lives.
“I work extremely hard daily but I believe in looking good and nice. I make sure that I find the time to focus on myself, to feel confident and articulate in business,” she says firmly.
Abudu lights up when she mentions her children.
“Without them, I have nothing. Balancing my role as a working mother is not easy, but they are good children, which has allowed me to progress as far as I have.”
After losing her father when she was a young, Abudu says her mother plays an important role in her life.
“My source of inspiration is my mother; she is indeed my biggest motivator and gives me strength. When I don’t believe in myself, she believes in me.”
Abudu is determined to make a difference in people’s lives, especially young people.
“Even though the [Ebony Life] brand is still young, we will have extensions, including apps, perhaps even accessories and African fashion, which will hopefully leave an impact, particularly on the youth in Africa.”
And with her focus and passion, it is easy to believe her when she says, “everything you think you know about Africa is about to change, forever!”.

Mo Abudu Africa’s queen of talk

Widely regarded as one of the best business leaders to have emerged from Africa over the past 20 years, there is not the slightest embarrassment on the face of this self-taught entrepreneur as he admits to having no investments—none whatsoever—other than the shares he has in Discovery Holdings, the company he formed over 21 years ago and built into a global diversified financial services group with an annual income of more than $4 billion (R40 billion).
With glee, he says he doesn’t subscribe to the conventional investment caveat of not putting your eggs in one basket. So, he is invested to the hilt in Discovery, now the largest health insurer in South Africa, of which he owns about 9%, part of a personal fortune of close to $300 million (R3 billion).
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Welcome to the world of, the sometimes maverick, Adrian Gore.
It is a day after Gore released more than respectable annual results for the year that ended on June 30. The results showed that the group had achieved a 20% increase in normalized headline earnings, to almost $281 million (R2,8 billion), while cash generated from operations was up by 45% to over $201 million (R2 billion). All this with a 15% rise in new business to $1 billion (R10 billion), mainly in Britain, China and the United States.
An ebullient Gore intimates that taking on the rest of the African continent could be in the offing in another three to five years.
“You don’t have to be first. I see a massive opportunity. Health insurance requires private health systems not yet present in Africa.”
Not that he hadn’t tried before; the company had to reassess its strategy following a couple of dud acquisitions.
“Ours is about building a product—not buy a business and bring costs down to make a profit. We create value for customers,” he says.
Gore’s contemporary, Barry Swartzberg, with whom he left Liberty to start Discovery and remains an executive director, was asked recently how the two complemented one another.
“He’s more thoughtful, works on aspects, takes a long time to mull over ideas.”
An actuary by training, Gore has spent the past 21 years changing the world of medical insurance in South Africa. Today, the company is a fully-fledged financial services entity after adding insurance and life asset management to its portfolio.
Gore now wants to change the world, and looks like he’s very much on the way—one country at a time.
In China, Discovery has a 25% stake in Ping An Health Insurance, the country’s largest private health insurer. It does business with companies like Volvo, Unilever and Goldman Sachs. In Britain, the company has created the fourth largest insurer in an alliance with old stager Prudential. It also has ties to Humana Inc in the United States, and the AIA Group in Singapore.
“China remains a huge growth market, with the estimated total healthcare spend expected to rise by over 90% by 2020. Private healthcare spend is expected to grow even stronger over this period. Ping An has established itself as the leader in Critical Illness Insurance and related spend, a strong position to be in given that approximately 65% of deaths are classified as non-communicable diseases. By increasing their stake, Discovery has identified this opportunity,” says Nick Crail, a portfolio manager at RMB Private Bank.
“Getting into these markets is brutal,” Gore says.
“There’s no easy way or short cut. Each market takes time.”
The market appears to approve of the AIA deal in Singapore. On the day it was signed, Discovery shares shot up 6.6%.
“The AIA deal entrenches Discovery’s footprint across the growth markets of Asia, excluding Japan, giving them access to 17 markets in the region with total assets of approximately $147 billion. Discovery has entered this market through their offering in Vitality. This will therefore be a cost exercise for them for the first few years, but should realise profits into the future,” says Crail.
“I think, judging by the rally in the share price, that the market has already priced in much of these ‘blue-sky’ ventures. Their recent trading update unsettled markets somewhat and we would expect investors to be more cautious in driving up the share price too strongly. Therefore we wouldn’t expect much more in the share price to year-end. Having said that, we like Discovery and believe in their long-term outlook.”
In Britain and the United States, Discovery entered markets that were already established, with a great deal of certainty, facing a myriad of competitors and very tight regulations. It made it difficult for Discovery to innovate as much, or as well, as it would have wanted. A developing market like China, on the other hand, while posing lots of possibilities, is a frontier that still calls for a fair amount of learning and cautious optimism.
Tenacity from the pioneering years of their South African operations has made Discovery able to withstand pressure and adapt.
“South Africa is a small but more sophisticated market than we are getting credit for,” says Gore.
Paul Theron, CEO of asset managers Vestact, says Gore’s character has been one of the key factors behind Discovery’s success.
“His growth has been amazing. It wasn’t a completely unique product that he was selling, coming out of Investec to start Discovery. But to go from that tiny firm to span into a global expansion has been brilliant.”
“They had some problems in the US. But in the UK they have been able to offer a good product around Vitality. The intellectual property is certainly something that will do well there. Incentivizing people with a healthy lifestyle will certainly take off. Along with the operational expertize having been around for a good number of years. Many people can come up with a good idea, but to actually make it work and have it run successfully over a number of years is an entirely different matter,” he says.
Discovery’s latest foray is into Singapore. It was announced in July, but Gore has little to say months later.
“We haven’t divulged the details of the transaction,” he says.
It is a trait of Gore that he has little to say about his missions until they are accomplished. This has been since the day he left Liberty Life, after developing the itch to start a small medical insurance unit within financial services group FirstRand, through the listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange to unbundling from the parent company. It led to Discovery claiming more than half of the South African health insurance market. A story of more bite, less bark from the man who keeps to himself.
Laurie Dippenaar, who is 23rd on the FORBES list of the 40 Richest Africans and the father of FirstRand, was the man who gave Gore his shot. He has a clear memory of their first meeting.
“You could immediately see this guy was different. He was not the typical chartered accountant nerdy smart. You could see he had intelligence but he also had business sense, all the qualities that make you a success. I think he is actually one of the smartest business people I have ever met.”
According to Dippenaar, Gore’s first pitch didn’t go as well as he planned. The life insurance scheme was too much like others.
“To this day he says I got it wrong. A year later he comes up and says he’s got something completely different. From life insurance he had gone to a health insurance. He started to describe what he had in mind and I could immediately see he was onto something.”
This something was Discovery.
“When he described that medical savings account, it was a pioneer move in South Africa. I remembered when I was a bachelor and paying all these premiums for health insurance. You are young and healthy you don’t need to claim. All you do is pay premiums. Here was a product where you could carry forward some of the premiums if you were not claiming. In theory you could get into a situation where you didn’t have any premiums to pay,” says Dippenaar.
Gore left his job and Dippenaar gave him three months to draw up a business plan, in Dippenaar’s own offices.
“He never had any hesitation. He came up with the numbers. We liked it. So we backed him,” he says.
Gore is undoubtedly a darling of his shareholders, as well as share speculators, but that’s not to say he is liked by all. He has made enemies and detractors. He stands accused, for example, of squeezing competitors out at every opportunity, a charge Gore denies vehemently.
“I don’t think that is fair. We are strong competitors and more competition is good for society. We do nothing unfairly.”
It’s not only competitors who are unhappy. Doctors have taken issue with Discovery’s payment rates, where practitioners are forced to cap their rates and accept smaller fees. Gore’s defence? Nothing wrong with the practice.
“After all, we are the paymaster.”
What about the hundreds of thousands of people covered by Discovery Health? Some of them think Discovery is making huge profits on the back of above-inflation medical rate increases, while bombarding them with peripheral benefits like gym contracts.
Furious customers, writing on a business news website on the day of Gore’s announcement of financial results, complained bitterly about forever shrinking benefits, while others used words like “robbery”, “rip off” and “gimmicks” to describe Vitality, Discovery’s rewards-for-healthy-living scheme.
“These are natural issues,” Gore says, “they see the money we make.”
It doesn’t bother him much, though, as experience shows that customers stick with Discovery.
“The customer satisfaction rate is very high,” he says proudly.
Honesty and optimism have been driving forces at Discovery from the day it was established, says the man who prides himself for being, in his own words: innovative and prudent.
“Building insurance around making people healthy may be quite soppy”, he says, but it has been the key to success in international markets.
“We know where to be bold, and when to be reticent. We are pushing hard on the ground, taking no prisoners. We are ruthless.”
Gore’s steely, and ruthless, determination is often likened to that of Steve Jobs, the late genius who founded Apple and who was liked and hated in equal measure; depending, of course, who was telling the story.
There are two framed pictures of Steve Jobs in Gore’s office. One is from a business leadership article and the other is from a cover of the Economist magazine.
Gore is at pains to explain that Jobs graced the cover in the same edition that carried a story about Discovery. In the piece, the Economist hails the innovation of Discovery’s Vitality program as an example of how quickly new ideas are starting to flow out of emerging markets to challenge the world.
As for Jobs, Gore finds him very inspiring—especially for his obsession with one product.
“The obsession with a solution for society,” says Gore, who says he uses this belief at Discovery.
“Every organization must be started by someone,” Gore says, “owner-manager culture has a certain drive to it, a certain authenticity.”
Discovery’s success owes much to its founding team, most of whom are still with the company.
“But what’s most exciting about Discovery is that the future is ahead of us,” Gore says.
That future, though, may be under threat. At least, according to analysts.
The private health care industry is nervous about the announcement by the South African government—the continent’s biggest economy and a huge contributor to Discovery’s profits—that it is planning to introduce National Health Insurance (NHI). It will be funded through taxes and administered by the state; the NHI will strive to give health care to all.
Some analysts believe it will make a huge dent in medical insurance industry profits, big enough to send a few of them under. They single out Discovery as one company on the risk list because of high administration and managed care charges.
“We will have to adapt in some way, but I don’t think it’s threatening at all,” says Gore.
Gore says while NHI was excellent and rational and could strengthen the public system dramatically, it won’t supplant the country’s private health system and will take much longer to introduce than the 12-13 years the government has given itself.
If history is anything to go by, there can be no doubt Gore and his team—called the best brains in the industry—are busy preparing, which probably explains Discovery’s involvement in at least one NHI pilot project.
“Status quo is undesirable. You can’t have huge portions of the population with no access to proper health care. It’s not good for the country. I don’t think a great business exists on the back of dysfunctionality. You can’t exist at the expense of society. You’ve got to be part of society,” says Gore.
But what is he doing for that society? That is, when not ensuring that everyone is covered, or spending time with his wife, his two university student daughters, and the son he takes to school every day.
Driven by a philosophy that only entrepreneurs create jobs, Gore chairs Endeavor South Africa, the local chapter of a global non-profit organization that seeks to identify and nurture young entrepreneurial talent. It’s where he hopes to find, mentor and offer a break to future Gores – perhaps in pretty much the same way Dippenaar did for him 21 years ago. First lesson, don’t take prisoners.

A Maverick  In Rude Health

Adam Molai is a tobacco entrepreneur. The Zimbabwean born-and-bred entrepreneur is the co-owner and executive chairman of Savanna Tobacco who has enjoyed a life that has rarely been dull. He studied in Canada and Britain; he did his articles in accounting, owned and operated garages, a stationery and copy shop, as well as a chicken farm. It was a friend who introduced this non-smoker to the tobacco industry.
As the land reform program of President Robert Mugabe forced out large-scale white commercial farmers, in favor of black workers, Molai realized that it would be a gamble going into business with his white friend when he founded the Zimbabwe Tobacco Growing Company. Now he is the director along with his wife. In 2002, he acquired a tobacco threshing plant with some partners. It did not make sense to Molai and his partners that the plant was being grown in Zimbabwe, shipped overseas and the finished product imported into the country. He decided to do something about it.
Savanna Tobacco launched its first brand of cigarettes in 2004. Two years later, it had brought in high-speed manufacturing equipment and won both bronze and silver at an international brand competition. By 2008/2009, the company had grabbed the largest share of the Zimbabwean market and was importing new and specialized equipment. This was at a time when Zimbabwe could not import paper from Germany to print its money.
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“We felt proud to be heads and shoulders with the big multi-nationals,” boasts Molai.
The company introduced the contract system to the country as a way to help boost the tobacco industry. It worked like this: there is an agreement between the contractor and the grower; the contractor supplies the grower with all the inputs and the grower grows, reaps, cures and delivers the crop. The grower receives preferential interest rates and the contractor is guaranteed a crop. This system got around the problem of finding finance to buy tobacco inputs in US dollars. Although the contract system is still operational, alongside the auctions, Savanna pulled out when they felt the financial system was capable of providing finance. This year a commercial bank in Zimbabwe—MBCA Bank Limited—made available $65 million worth of lines of credit to support the industry.
Zimbabwe is the largest producer of tobacco in Africa. It exports to China, South Africa, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Indonesia and Germany and imports some tobacco from Malawi and South Africa.
China is the biggest producer of cigarettes and has the largest tobacco company in the world. It started using the Zimbabwean leaf in the 1980s and in 2005 Tian Ze Tobacco Company was established in Zimbabwe. Chinese companies came in and financed small-scale farmers under the contract system. Their presence has since increased the price of tobacco per kilogram. This year, the average price increased to $3.67.
Molai feels that China has played its role in the growth of the industry but that the relationship with China needs to be symbiotic and not perpetuate the mere exportation of raw tobacco and jobs.
“China protects their market more than anything else. We’re running with people that are already at the half-way line&#8230; You’ll never win, you have no chance,” he says.
Around 100 countries produce tobacco; the major producers are China, India, Brazil, the United States, Turkey, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.
Zimbabwe has some domestic issues that were raised at the National Tobacco Workshop held last year. These included the poor conditions of amenities and accommodation at the auction floors, constant power cuts, deforestation, the limited credit and poor infrastructure.
The industry however does not have to worry about tight regulation in the marketing of cigarettes. The global legislation on tobacco has decreased global consumption over the years. The World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control—which is “the international health treaty that guides national efforts to counter the tobacco epidemic…”—now has 168 signatories. Zimbabwe is not one of them.
“I make no apologies for it,” says Molai, “we are strong marketers.”

The Golden Leaf

You wouldn’t think George Sambonos is a multi-millionaire. He may drive a Porsche, but he spends his Fridays helping clear the tables in the rush of Friday lunchtime at his flagship store. Hence, two words describe him: ‘humble’ and ‘shrewd’.
The son of a Greek entrepreneur, Sambonos was born in Hillbrow, South Africa. His life has been filled with doses of luck and bucket-loads of hard work. It all began with his father’s business, started by his mother to pass the time. The Dairy Den was a franchise, from the US Dairy Queen, selling ice cream and fried chicken to customers in their cars. He worked at the Dairy Den from the age of 18 and would stay until the wee hours every day.
He uses words like “awful” and “horrible” to describe working for his Jekyll-and-Hyde father. Sambonos recalls days when he’d have to go outside and cry for five minutes in his determination not to quit. Another time, his father threw a bread knife at him for dropping a glass—the knife stuck into the skirting board. He remembers his father as a good businessman but an awful boss. Sambonos is the opposite with his daughter, Chantal. He considers himself strict but fair, believing that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.
It was the benign side of Sambonos senior that threw tickets to America across the dining room table and gave the young man a chance to make a discovery that was to change his life. The condition of these trips was that he visit his aunt in Greece on the way back.
The overseas trips allowed him to soak up everything he could about the US restaurant business. Sambonos would spend his days walking from one outlet to another, trying out the food and taking photographs of the menus. He claims that he still does this, but is now more selective and secretive. When he takes a picture these days, he gets his wife to hold the menu, while he pretends to take a picture of her.
It was on one of these trips, in 1972, that Sambonos tasted the fried chicken which would change his life. He asked the business owner in Waco, Texas, to give him the recipe. He wore the owner down to making a deal but did not have the $5,000 asking price. The chicken shop owner took pity on Sambonos because he was young. Further negotiations brought the price down to $1,000—all the money he had for the rest of his trip.
Sambonos came back too afraid to tell his father what he’d done. He began mixing the spices under his bed and adding them to the chicken at his father’s roadhouse, from a recipe he hoped was right. Chicken sales grew. The Dairy Den went from taking in R25,000 a month to a staggering R200,000 a month in the course of a year: a fortune in those days.
It was a good three months before Sambonos came clean, if you can call it that. It was a visiting relative who asked Sambonos’s father what he’d done to the chicken and the old man said: “That little ‘bastard’ must have done something—I’ll kill him.” The secret recipe for the addictive chicken is safely in the hands of Robertsons Spices, and its chemist was made a director in the company to safeguard the company secret.
With business doing so well, thanks to Sambonos’s bold move, he thought it the right time to ask for a 5% profit share. This did not go down well with his father, who told him to either be happy with what he’s got or his cousin would be called in to replace him. So when the opportunity came up to sign the store’s lease in his name while his father was in Greece, Sambonos jumped at it. It was a move motivated purely to save the lease, but his father didn’t speak to him for three months and died three months after their reconciliation.
Rebranding was next. In 1981, Sambonos wanted to name the store ‘Golden Fried Chicken’, like the name of the company he’d just formed, but was turned down because the name was too descriptive. A despairing Sambonos had his head buried in his hands when one of his waiters suggested the name, Chicken Licken, from the children’s book, Chicken Little/Chicken Licken. The waiter received R300 for his idea.
The Chicken Licken signs went up and by 1982, Sambonos had taken over the business and was franchising into the townships. The first franchise was in Zola, Soweto. Sambonos admits to giving away the first franchises. By 1985, he began selling them for R3,000 and giving the franchisee R15,000 worth of equipment to get them started. A television commercial featuring a well-known black actor drove up sales in 1989 with the jingle “It’s good, good, good, it’s good, it’s nice.” Sambonos found out what his customers liked and used it to make money.
Setting up in the townships of South Africa during apartheid was another risky move by Sambonos and in 1984, things took a turn for the worse. The growing turmoil in Soweto meant that delivering chicken to the township was nearly impossible. Business suffered.
Sambonos has come a long way since then, with 245 outlets and franchisee payments of 12% of their turnover, up from the pre-2012 payments of 10%. These consist of 6% for royalty fees and 6% for the advertising share. The group is said to turn down five people a day. This is all testament to how much the brand has grown. There is an outlet set-up cost of at least R2.8 million ($354,670) and an initial franchise fee of R120,000 ($15,200). The flagship store in northern Johannesburg cost R5 million ($633,240) to set up, excluding the R500,000 ($63,330) for the generator. Unlike the 1980s, a lack of electricity is a concern these days.
Sambonos is still at the helm, ensuring stringent quality control. All the outlets receive their ingredients from the same licensed suppliers; use the same specs; are furnished with identical equipment; and have access to the trademarks.
This rigorous approach has led to problems when expanding in the continent. The company opened two stores in Mauritius, with a three-year royalty break. The country only had two chicken producers, one of which supplied Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC); they had no choice but to use the other. The outlets did well, but when the royalty break ended, so did Chicken Licken in Mauritius.
Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, had four outlets which were doing extremely well; one of them was a top performer in the entire group. That is, until the country ran out of foreign exchange to pay for ingredients.
Nigeria’s five outlets in Lagos closed down due to issues with the franchisee. According to Sambonos, the franchisee wanted to refranchise to others at a lower rate and loosen quality control.
Chicken Licken plans to invest in the rest of Africa, beyond their 12 stores in Botswana. Sambonos says this is provided they get the same quality chicken in those countries. The company is awaiting expansion into the continent by Rainbow Chicken, South Africa’s main chicken supplier. Sambonos feels that the key to success is to control the chicken and the advertising. In Nigeria, the cost of fuel to run generators has to be thought about as no business can rely on the electricity supply.
Sambonos says: “Nigeria’s only got 30 million chickens, that’s all. The big producer is the former president and he won’t let you import chicken, so you’re finished.”
As if going into the rest of Africa is not hard enough, Chicken Licken has had to battle the image of being a township brand in its attempt to enter wealthier malls. There is an apparent fear that the outlets will bring in the wrong element of people.
Sambonos was annoyed when O.R. Tambo International offered to slot them in the back. He believes his brand will win over the sceptics.
The company’s annual turnover is close to R1.4 billion ($177.4 million) and is powering its way towards its R2 billion ($253.5 million) target for 2014. Sambonos says that the company reaching R3 billion ($380.2 million) by 2017 will be his cue to step down from handling the suppliers and the advertising. “They can’t mess it up after that,” he chuckles.
The 2012 budget is R64 million ($8.1 million) for advertising and Sambonos oversees the ideas right down to attending the photo shoot.
The group is also a firm believer in taking care of its employees. Every three months, the best performing manager receives a R6,000 ($760) to R12,000 ($1,520) bonus and the rest of the outlet, about R600 ($75) each.
Sambonos says: “If the manager is right, then the rest of the outlet is right.”
Kind to his employees, but merciless to his competitors, Sambonos has seen his fair share of battles, or caused them, as some might say.
The first legal battle, in 1982 with KFC, was over the name. Sambonos opened up an outlet in Lenasia, south of Johannesburg, not far from a KFC. The new store took half of KFC’s business in just two weeks. The battle lines were drawn.
KFC claimed Chicken Licken’s name was too close to their ‘Finger Lickin’ Good’ slogan. Sambonos says the trademark lawyers told him he could change the name or fight in court. He chose the fight, dropping off the R10,000 legal fees in a Chicken Licken plastic bag that ended up in the office fridge. Chicken Licken won both the case and the appeal. The proud Sambonos says KFC offered him R250,000 to change the name, a sum he clearly refused, adding a sly: “Harry Swartz (of KFC) said, ‘Hell or high water, I’ll see you in Bloemfontein [High Court]’.” They never made it there.
The second battle was born of Sambonos’s usual trips to the US in the early 1980s. Walking down 6th Avenue in New York, he saw a KFC banner advertising KFC’s popcorn chicken. Loving the idea, he called his lawyer to put in an application with the South African registrar. A while later, back home, he saw a KFC advert for KFC Pops in the paper and did some digging into how this was even possible.
Apparently, his paperwork was not pushed through due to clerical forgetfulness. Sambonos demanded due diligence as he had placed his application first. The matter was settled at the registrar; KFC lost again.
By the time the hotwings saga began in 1992, Sambonos was already a thorn in KFC’s side. KFC held a convention in Swaziland for its franchisees, who were served fried hotwings. A friend’s phone call prompted Sambonos to call up his lawyer and say: “Hotwings! See if we can grab the name quickly.” The lawyer found out that a company called County Fair owned the name in South Africa, but had failed to use it. Sambonos’s lawyer offered them R750 ($300 at the then exchange rate) for the name, pointing out that  their ownership could easily be expunged and they’d get nothing from it. The lawyer signed a check on the spot.
Sambonos describes how he quietly went to Rainbow Chicken and asked them to supply him with his wings, even drawing a diagram as to where they should be cut. In the meantime, the creative entrepreneur would buy normal chicken wings and cut them himself. He sold them at one outlet—six ‘hotwings’ and chips for R2.95 ($1 at the then exchange rate)—and had the manager keep all the receipts just so they could use the name for the minimum required period. This paid off because KFC decided to start selling the hotwings its sister company in the US had introduced, only to be informed by Rainbow Chicken that Chicken Licken had beaten them to the order and would use the same name.
Since the name legally belonged to Chicken Licken, KFC offered Sambonos about R85,000 ($29,460 at the time) for it. “No deal,” said the man who had already paid R750.
According to Sambonos, his company sells an average of 12,000 cases of hotwings a week and is now importing XL wings to keep up with the growing demand. The original ‘six hotwings and chips’ meal now costs R21.95 ($3).
Sambonos attributes his business savvy to his constant need for something new. He still reads trade journals every week and travels as much as he can. He says that the US isn’t as secretive as the South African market. There, when a company creates something new, they test it and it becomes common knowledge.
Sambonos says: “If somebody has got something good and you’re not going to go to jail for it, use it.”
Wise words from the humble millionaire who owns the trademark “Soul” in the food category, and probably has his eye on a few more words.

From Ducking Knives  To Making Millions

Trevor Ncube, 49, a Zimbabwean publisher, looks a hard nut to crack. Perhaps he is tough as nails after navigating the murky waters of Zimbabwean politics to set up private papers that have clashed with President Robert Mugabe and given an alternative voice to state-owned media.
It has made Ncube rich, with an estimated fortune running into millions of rand. He prefers to keep this figure under lock and key, the legacy of humble beginnings.
Ncube was born into a poor household in colonial Zimbabwe in the 1960s, when there were few opportunities for black men. His father was an amazing cook, in his words, and his mother, Alima, a domestic servant, later an entrepreneur, who sold clothes to send six children to school.
“Our upbringing was tough&#8230; we struggled quite a lot. There were times when I didn’t have shoes, walked to school barefoot; there are times when I didn’t have a uniform, and friends would borrow me shirts. We would run out of things like Vaseline to oil our body and used margarine instead, so we would look good,” says Ncube.
To raise school fees, Ncube often worked as a gardener at the home of a white family, the Johnsons, where his parents worked, in the suburbs of the country’s second largest city, Bulawayo.
“It is this background that has made me humble,” Ncube said.
His mother gave Ncube a taste for making money, his background the motivation.
“I never wanted to live the kind of life we lived, I wanted my life to be different. The life of lack, the type of hand-to-mouth existence I endured, not because of my parents’ fault or anything. It is a life I said I didn’t want to endure. It’s fear of being poor, the fear of the hand-to-mouth existence,” he said.
Achieving this hasn’t been easy in the rough-and-tumble of Zimbabwean politics. Ncube has been in and out of police cells, starting with his student leader days at the University of Zimbabwe in the 1980s. Once, while detained at a police station in Harare, the former head of intelligence threw a pistol in Ncube’s face in anger over a student demonstration.
When he became a journalist, the cells awaited Ncube yet again, as his newspaper, The Financial Gazette, the country’s business weekly, trod on a few powerful toes.
“The discomfort of being in a room with 14 other suspects, with a toilet close by—the stench was awful. Sending us to prison was a way of showing us they could do anything they wished, that they were in charge. It was uncomfortable, it makes you very angry and think of a way to treat these people in kind for what they are doing to you. It was very frightening. I had never been in prison and I didn’t know what would happen next, given the unexplained disappearances of others in similar circumstances by the state,” says Ncube.
These days, Ncube is merely disappointed with Zimbabwe’s leaders whom, he says, had plenty of opportunities to turn things around since independence, but have little to show for it.
Beneath Ncube’s often acid look, as he narrates a painful past, is, in his own words, “a loving and caring man who fears God”.
Ncube also needed guts to set up a company now running three papers in Zimbabwe: a daily, financial weekly and Sunday paper. This, in addition to publishing South Africa’s second most popular paper, The Mail&amp;Guardian, selling just over 51,000 copies every week. He holds 76% equity in the Mail&amp;Guardian.
“Nothing happens at the M&amp;G when I don’t want it to,” he says.
A climb down from chairperson to deputy chair of the M&amp;G group raised whispers that he was being bought out.
“I’m not a CEO. I provide strategic support, wisdom, oversight. I’m not a manager, I’m terrible at management. I’m a leader, I’m not an entrepreneur. There are much smarter, better managers out there. I thought, ‘Well, let me stick to what I know best… I love making babies, I don’t like taking care of babies, so, well, I like conceiving ideas and projects, and letting them happen’.”
Ncube won the German Africa Award, from the German Africa Foundation, for press freedom, human rights and democracy in Zimbabwe and Southern Africa, a journalistic milestone on the road to riches.
Says Andy Moyse, a journalist who heads Zimbabwe Mass Media Monitoring Project, which scrutinizes news in the country for fair and professional coverage of events: “He (Ncube) is an astute businessman. He has created one of the biggest print media businesses the country has ever witnessed. He has brought his business acumen into the media environment. To be fair, he has created a very dominant single media house. We need this to deal with the repressive media climate.”
Ncube’s career has been eventful and often rocky, to say the least. It all began with a job as assistant editor of The Financial Gazette in 1991. He got fired by the publisher years later for not toeing the editorial line.
“It was a tough time. If you have never been fired, then you have no business being in business. Being fired is a university in itself. It toughens you, it makes you realise how life is like.”
Ncube got fired with a mortgage hanging over him and a family to take care of, despite the fact that he was once nominated Zimbabwe Editor of the Year.
Within months, Ncube had scouted for a financier to set up a private paper, The Zimbabwe Independent. Clive Murphy, a serial entrepreneur, got wind of that; a meeting was set up, and the rest is history. He was initially offered a 2% stake, but increased it to 5%. He paid it off when the business returns looked good.
“I’m scared of debt. When the first dividend of equity came, that was it, I became a capitalist. I never looked back,” Ncube said. After almost a decade, he took over the controlling shareholding of The Zimbabwe Independent.
From The Zimbabwe Independent are two off-shoots: a weekly, The Standard, and a daily, NewsDay, part of a media empire called Alpha Media Holdings.
Ncube smiles at the memory of the next step. When he lost The Financial Gazette job, Ncube applied for a job at South Africa’s Sunday Times and Mail&amp;Guardian. He was turned down by both. The rich irony is that he now owns Mail&amp;Guardian.
This is how it happened: During a trip to Cape Town, Govan Reddy, the previous owner, approached him, having caught wind that Ncube wanted to expand his media business portfolio into the region.
“They wanted someone with a pedigree, who would withstand political pressure but who is also even-handed to both government and opposition,” Ncube said.
Negotiating the deal wasn’t easy. Ncube had to shrug off the challenge from big-hitting potential suitors like Zwelake Sisulu and Anthony Harper. After acquiring it, Ncube says the challenge was to turn it around. The M&amp;G, at the time, was making over R15 million ($1.95 million) in losses every year. “For me, it was the biggest test being in a foreign environment where the players are complete strangers,” he says.
Ncube applied for a New York-based foundation funding loan for media development. It provides seed capital, is run professionally, and they charge interest.
“We have since repaid the loan,” he said.
It’s not an easy job. At the time, the establishment was accusing the M&amp;G of pandering to white interests.
“Naturally, we are bound to irritate the political establishment. That doesn’t worry us, it doesn’t concern us, it happens here in Zimbabwe. That is the nature of the beast. We would worry if the politicians weren’t complaining.”
What bothers the publisher is the politics of South Africa.
“The situation in South Africa is now beginning to approximate what happened here 20 years ago. That’s where South Africa is after 16 years of a new political dispensation—the intolerance around the media, this new secrecy bill. For me, watching South Africa play out is watching Zimbabwe play all over again. I know a lot of South Africans get irritated when you say that. South Africa is Zimbabwe again in slow motion in certain instances,”
says Ncube.
It could be tricky for Ncube, when it comes to speaking out about politics. He is known as a journalist who speaks his mind and has an analytical insight into the political machinations of Zimbabwe and South Africa. On the other hand, he is a man with media interests—which can often be vulnerable—both sides of the Limpopo River. This year, he is likely to field a flurry of questions, about the politics of the land of his birth, as Zimbabwe is expected to hold elections.
Referring to Zimbabwean politics, he says: “It is going to be turbulent. I don’t think the Movement for Democratic Change (under Morgan Tsvangirai) has a clue about governance. But (should it win an election) it will only provide that environment necessary for stability.”
A journalist at Alpha Media Holdings, who declined to be named, said: “His (Ncube’s) commitment to democracy and media freedom in particular is not driven by corporate or business interest. It is an ingrained conviction for him. He has this deep-seated belief that people must be free… his downside is his failure to create a balance between the workers’ interests and enlightened self-interest. He would do well if he became more sensitive to our remunerations; otherwise, he is a great guy.”
<h3>New Randela Notes 
Cause A Stir</h3>
With South Africa’s rand under pressure, word on Friday afternoon that there would be an announcement of national importance on the following day, February 11, caused consternation in the markets.
The rand lost 2.5% of its value as traders got the jitters ahead of the mysterious announcement in Pretoria. The invitation said the South African President, Jacob Zuma, Reserve Bank Governor, Gill Marcus and Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan were all going to be there—something highly important, surely? Journalists stayed glued to their phones and laptops—maybe exchange controls were about to be abolished. Imagine?
In the end, it was merely an announcement that former President Nelson Mandela was to replace the big five game animals—lion, buffalo, rhino, elephant and leopard—on the front of South Africa’s bank notes.  “It’s the Randela!” joked one journalist.
The announcement was to coincide with the 22nd anniversary of the release of Mandela from Victor Verster Prison, near Cape Town, on February 11, 1990. The notes have improved security marks and  features to help the blind. They will be put into circulation before the end of the year and the  existing notes will remain legal tender.
Marcus apologised for the confusion around the announcement and quipped: “It shows how little we look to good news.”
As for the losses to the rand during the confusion? The CNBC Africa markets team assures FORBES AFRICA that most of the 2.5% loss to the value of the rand was largely down to the economic woes of Greece, rather than the PR clumsiness of the government officials behind the new face on the notes.
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How Fear Can Make You Rich

There are few entrepreneurs in Africa who can claim to have been imprisoned three times by Idi Amin for allegations of being a political threat. There are fewer still who can say they were forced into exile in Europe and imprisoned by the Uganda National Liberation Army for four-and-a-half months. This is the story of Gordon Wavamunno, Ugandan entrepreneur—a man who didn’t go to high school but who holds three honorary doctorates and is worth millions.
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“It has not been easy, but one has to eat and one has to persist,” he says.
Building a successful business in Uganda is hard enough without the complication of political instability and persecution.  Wavamunno, founder and chairman of the Spear Group of Companies, knows this all too well. The Ugandan businessman has built a $30-million empire despite his country’s turmoil.
Wavamunno chose business over high school. He began training at his father’s trading business, moved up to become a cashier, and ventured into the produce-buying business in 1961. It was a prelude to breaking away from his father’s business.
This busy and self-proclaimed “shrewd businessman” spent a decade growing his transport fleet. When Ugandan president Idi Amin nationalized the only motor company in Uganda, Wavamunno saw an opportunity in the market and approached Daimler-Benz for a possible franchise. It was the beginning of a 34-year-old business relationship that has survived political upheaval. Daimler’s decision to enter Uganda during the violent rule of President Amin was surprising, but it paid off.
“1971 to 1988 was a hard time,” says Wavamunno with typical understatement.
It was during this time that Wavamunno was thrown into cells and had to rebuild his business over and over again. Yet despite these crises, he has been
voted Businessman of the Year in a poll by a national newspaper for 10 years running.
He attributes his success to his will, support from banks, good managers and his principle of diversification. In his career he has ventured into transport, tourism, dry cleaning, hotels, television and radio, banking and property.
But how do you keep track of all your eggs in many baskets?
“I believe in what I’m doing. If there is an opportunity, then one should go after it. This is the key to success,” says Wavamunno.
He is also a man who demands much from his employees.
“You need to make sure that they are there to work for the company, not to throw it in the fire. The people who work for the company own it more than the shareholders do,” he says.
There were mistakes along the way. Wavamunno cites his worst business blunder as a $4 million foray into flower export. Heavy winds destroyed his first crops, sending him running back to the bank. There was also poor advice, leading to Wavamunno planting the wrong variety of flowers.
By the time the flowers were ready, the market had dropped. Since then, the farm has recovered and is looking to expand.
Wavamunno believes there is a lot of potential in Africa and feels that the continent can do better. He adds that a lot relies on the integrity of leaders to improve the living conditions of African people and improve skills.
“Uganda has recently discovered some oil; we have minerals, but we are still backward,” he says.
Looking forward, Wavamunno is working on a $60 million project with partners.
“Currently, our organization is involved in investing in three core countries, namely Kenya, Uganda and Southern Sudan.”
His message to young African entrepreneurs?
“First and foremost, young Africans need training and exposure; they have to accept that they cannot get rich within a day, month or year&#8230; most important is confidence in themselves and their countries. The future is bright for Uganda and East Africa as a whole.”
Wise words, from a wise old African.
Uganda In A Box
To say that Uganda has been through some rough seas would be putting it mildly. In 1966, Uganda was under the authoritarian rule of Milton Obote. In 1971, Idi Amin declared himself president. Amin was toppled in 1979, after eight years of political and economic collapse. It was during this time that he expelled Asians from the country. Obote won the 1980 elections but was replaced by General Okello in 1985, who was replaced by Yoweri Museveni in 1986. Uganda has since reached economic stability and operates under a ‘non-party’ political system with Museveni as head of state and of government.

Out Of Adversity Comes Opportunity

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

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

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

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

Tag: Entrepreneur

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