Gar Lippincott and Daniel Ryan of Atlantic American Partners were in South Africa recently looking for high-net-worth individuals wanting to invest in the US.
It’s a warm spring day in September, and Gar Lippincott and Daniel Ryan have just arrived in South Africa. It is Lippincott’s first time in the country, and he is jet-lagged.
A little over two months ago, he was booked to fly here from the United States (US) but was turned back at immigration.
“At Atlanta airport, the lady looked at Daniel’s visa and let him through and she looked at my visa and she said ‘I am afraid you can’t get on the plane because you have to have a blank page on your passport’. I said ‘I have three blank pages’ and she said ‘no, it’s supposed to be the one that says visa on it’. She said it’s the rules in South Africa so I had to sadly go back home… now when I was coming, I was told that’s not an issue anymore so I am happy they have made traveling into the country easier,” says Lippincott.
With a brand-new passport, he’s here with Ryan looking for people who want to invest in the US in exchange for a green card.
Lippincott, the Managing Partner of Atlantic American Partners, says he has always been keen on South Africa for its growth opportunities and prospects.
“From what I understand, the things that are causing short-term decline in the economy in South Africa are set up to provide long-term growth and hopefully people will understand this,” he says. Ryan, the company’s Managing Director of Emerging Markets – Africa, agrees: “I lived in Malawi for 12 years and South Africa is still considered the shining one throughout the continent. Even with all the problems, everyone still wants to come here because of the opportunities.”
According to an AfrAsia Bank report, South Africa comes second to Mauritius in boasting the highest number of high-net-worth individuals.
These are the kind of people Ryan and Lippincott target through their work at Atlantic American Partners. The company has real estate investors and professional private equity fund managers that manage money for banks, insurance companies, and pension funds. In addition, they help people get US green cards and ultimately US citizenship through the US government’s EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program.
“Basically we look for people who want to move to the United States and we help them do so legally by investing and the nice thing is, with our program, they are also able to get a nice return on investment,” he says.
According to Lippincott, for a $500,000 investment that creates 10 jobs for American workers, you could get a green card in about two years and be a US citizen in about six or seven years. “Twenty seven countries have an investor visa program but with most of them, it’s essentially a fee you pay, or you need to be actively engaged in the day-to-day operation of a business. For example, you invest $1.5 million in Australia, but you need to hire employees and generate a certain amount of revenue. One of the biggest advantages with our program is you actually invest the $500,000 into a fund. We act as a trustee of that money and within five to seven years, they get that money back with a bit of return on investment and you are a permanent citizen in the US.”
Atlantic American Partners invests the money in real estate developments like hotels, apartments and student accommodation.
“What’s nice about the program is it doesn’t only cover the investor; it covers the spouse and children under 21. Our biggest family was a Hungarian family with seven children so they got nine green cards for $500,000,” says Lippincott.
The company says it has had positive response in South Africa. “Two months ago, we were here and we had scheduled six presentations for 100 people and we ended up speaking to 450 people. Most were business people, people worried about the economy, people worried about the political future of South Africa and people concerned about the education future of their children,” says Ryan.
According to Lippincott, despite the news of the clampdown on immigration, the US economy is booming and will perish without immigration. In the era of Donald Trump and his anti-immigrant views, that’s heartening news indeed.

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A traditional, informal means of saving, stokvel investment societies continue to bind communities in South Africa and is a multi-billion dollar industry. Their capital is trust, and their currency a central fund that spawns new opportunities.

In this house in Centurion in Johannesburg on a winter afternoon, there’s song, food, camaraderie and joy. And one common component that binds the women: stokvels.
For most South Africans honoring the traditional mode, this is the word synonymous with savings schemes that they have come to trust over generations.
And like this meet we are witness to today, it stands for a union in which a group of people who know and trust each other enter into an agreement to contribute a fixed amount of money towards a common pool.
The group of people we are meeting are the Akanani Sisters, stokvel members who occasionally come together, bantering over a hot meal and listening to music.
“The whole purpose of the stokvel is so that we may come together as ladies and mothers made of different age groups, so we may build and advise one another on life matters. It is not just about collecting money, we cry and laugh together,” says Bahedile Mooke, one of the members.
Stokvels, the traditional South African savings scheme with 11.5 million members in 810,000 groups contributing R50 billion ($3.76 billion) annually to the economy, is often overlooked.
“If you speak of something that is outside of that framework, then that is something else,” says Mizi Mtshali, the Chief Executive Officer of the National Stokvel Association of South Africa (NASASA).
The Akanani Sisters stokvel was formed in 2015 by three family members who gathered on a monthly basis. The group, however, is not registered with NASASA and does not save their money through financial institutions. However, they are looking at registering with NASASA as a precautionary step.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-37025 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokvel-958-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="683" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokvel-958-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokvel-958-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokvel-958-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokvel-958-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokvel-958-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokvel-958.jpg 1366w" sizes="(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" />
<blockquote>“We got tired of meeting only when there were funerals, so we decided to start a small stokvel even if it was just for groceries,” says Sibongile Motsoeneng, treasurer of the Akanani Sisters.</blockquote>
This afternoon, they are six professionals from Johannesburg who are close friends.
“Society forces you to always put money aside – I don’t play around when money has to be paid, because we all want to be happy at the same time,” says Motsoeneng.
The monthly premium for the stokvel is R1,300 ($98) for which R500 ($37.6) is set aside towards groceries and rest distributed among the members at the end of each year.
“Our groceries are not like other stokvels, where you see them buy maize meal in large quantities. We buy groceries as per our personalized everyday needs. So the grocery would last us for about six months and one would just add on meat and other small things on a monthly basis,” says Motsoeneng.
In addition to their stokvel, they contribute a R300 ($22.5) towards each other’s birthdays for buying presents, and R2,000 ($151) for their occasional weekend holiday trips.
Nonzolo Soldati, the chairperson of the stokvel, says they drew up a constitution which dictates the size of the contributions, when the accumulated money is to be paid out, and the roles and responsibilities of the members that have to be abided by.
“If you fail to pay your monthly premiums for more than three months, that would mean you forfeit your portion of your groceries and savings at the end of the year. Also, if you fail to attend the monthly gatherings, you are fined R50 ($3.76),” says Soldati.
“We used to deposit the money in the bank, but now we no longer do so because of the exorbitant bank charges,” says Soldati.
Through these stokvels, the members’ lives have changed, as they are not unduly stressed by financial woes come January. Their finances are in order and they also don’t feel the pinch of food price hikes through the year.
Apart from the groceries they purchased last year, they each saved R17,000 ($1,280), which is nothing unusual, according to Mtshali.
<blockquote>“On average in South Africa, a stokvel consists of 20 participants and they can save [as much] R50,000 ($3,765),” says Mtshali.</blockquote>
Investing in stokvels is not without risk however. Unlike the formal financial institutions, the only security members can bank on is trust. As a result of its unregulated nature, fraud in stokvels is common.
Ask one of the Akanani Sisters members, Bongiwe Mncube, who lost all her money. She was scammed in a burial society in Kempton Park.
“We lost two people [to death] in our community in the space of two months. That is when we realized that all the money we were ‘putting away’ was not there,” says Mncube.
They were able to pay for the burial of the first bereavement, but when it came to the second, they were scraping for funds.
“We last knew that we had money, but when we went to check the bank statement, we were surprised to find out that money was not being deposited for a couple of months. So I walked away because I had no leg to stand on,” says Mncube.
Mtshali says such stories are the reason why stokvel associations must register with NASASA so they can check the legitimacy of such societies. So, should the unthinkable happen one day, the participant is able to press criminal charges.
The word stokvels is believed to have originated from the term ‘stock fair’ used to describe auctions run by English settlers in the 19th century, but as the industry is becoming the leading form of savings and investment in South Africa, it is referred to in multiple ways, such as social clubs, gooi-goois, investment clubs, kuholisana, and makgotlas. The stokvels available vary according to the needs of the members.
“As much as there are holiday stokvels and property, social and party clubs, but grocery, burial society and saving clubs are still the most dominant,” says Mtshali.
Ponzi schemes and pyramid schemes have also camouflaged as stokvels.
“What has happened over the years is that a lot of operators have started abusing the word stokvels…They use that word to attract customers for whatever product they are looking to sell,” says Mtshali.
While stokvels may seem like an informal way of making money, it is serious business. Members do their homework, deliberate about which companies to invest in and make investment decisions. And the best part about it is knowing there may be a financial windfall one day. It’s cash that is built on trust and binds communities.
<h3>Stokvel Homes?</h3>
<div id="attachment_37023" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37023" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-37023" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nicholas-261-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nicholas-261-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nicholas-261-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nicholas-261-600x900.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nicholas-261-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nicholas-261-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Nicholas-261.jpg 1366w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" />Nicolas Manyike</div>
Nicolas Manyike’s property stokvel leads to new investment opportunities.
Land ownership is a burning topic in South Africa, which is why publicist and businessman Nicolas Manyike founded Property Stokvel Investment, a stokvel that aims to buy and rent out properties, encouraging black people to be property owners.
Manyike, who grew up poor in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa, watched his mother struggle with accommodation, yet she was a member of various grocery stokvels.
“My mother was in a lot of grocery stokvels and we would eat up all the food, then the struggle would continue. So I always thought ‘how about we use the same concept but for something that has long-term benefits for us as a black community’,” says Manyike.
He decided to rework the stokvel model to have long-term benefits.
“We need to shift our mind-set around stokvels,” he says.
He worked on his idea, through drafting the constitution and coming up with the two phases that will create the members enough capital to be able to purchase land.
“The first phase is to get 100 members that would contribute R2,100 ($158). The R100 (7.52) is for administration purposes. So that we could accumulate R1 million ($75,300) in 10 months that we will use to purchase property, or a franchise that will create profit for the members,” says Manyike.
It is only in the second phase that individual property will be bought for each member.
Manyiko says that ownership of the house will be registered in the stokvel’s name until all participants are house-holders within two years.
Property Stokvel Investment currently has over 80 members and is not registered with NASASA. Manyike believes stokvels do not need to be registered as they are self-regulating.
“All stokvels in South Africa are self-regulated. NASASA is more focused on grocery stokvels. We are bound by our constitution,” he says.
“We are banking with Nedbank as a club account and we have a committee, once we have a 100 members we will increase the number of people in the committee,” says Manyike.
Purchasing property in South Africa is a struggle due to increasing home loans and interest. Could stokvels be the future of acquiring property?
<h3>Download A Stokvel</h3>
<div id="attachment_37024" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-37024" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-37024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokfella-129-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokfella-129-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokfella-129-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokfella-129-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokfella-129-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Stokfella-129.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Tshepo Moloi</div>
Tshepho Moloi says he has championed the future of stokvels.
Imagine being a stokvel member and never having to meet? Well, that is what the future of stokvels looks like based on an app designed by Tshepho Moloi, the founder of StokFella.
“Most businesses are bought out of frustration of people saying that we could do better. I wanted to start an investment stokvel but the administration behind it was a bit of a headache,” says Moloi.
Moloi went home to Soweto, where he grew up, and observed a burial stokvel that was in existence for two years and had developed into an investment and grocery stokvel.
“I found out that the common problem is maladministration… So that is how the birth of StokFella came about,” he says.
StokFella, is a smartphone-based app that seeks to help stokvels organize, manage, communicate and be more efficient in growing their wealth.
“By doing that, it gives them access to economic opportunities. So they grow from point A to point B,” Moloi says.
In just two years, the app has 5,000 active members and is user-friendly for all age groups and LSMs.
“When stokvels want to be endorsed by us, they need to come to our offices so that we may conduct due diligence on them. However, those that just want to use the app could just download it,” says Moloi.
The main challenge StokFella faced during its initial stages was with the paperwork of regulatory laws and reaching the right market.
“But I am happy to have championed the future of stokvels. Honestly, it is not a unique solution but our implementation is how we have been able to get far,” he says.
“If 10 years from now, we still have a R49 billion ($3.69 billion) industry, then we have not done our job!” says Moloi.
&nbsp;

Stokvel-943

The Social Capital of Stokvels

On a cool April afternoon in Johannesburg, we are at 4th Avenue in Parkhurst – a charming suburb with stylish resto-bars, Afr0-chic boutiques and eateries spilling on to the streets – for a rather heady experience in the middle of the day.
Every tipple, every bit of trivia is crucial for this entrepreneur on the block. At the Bottega Café, which gets full on weekends and most weeknights, owner Saverio Cardillo is always present to offer customers a hands-on experience and bespoke tastings of whisky.
He pulls up a chair and gets talking animatedly about the bottles of the fermented beverage that imperviously fill the glass showcases lining all the walls of his café.
For starters, he says there are two ways to spell it – and that could be a conversation starter at any party. The Irish spell it ‘whiskey’ and the Scots ‘whisky’.
“I call it the heaven journey. It is a little point that no one knows about. Every single person that walks in here and does not know about it, they walk in and say ‘wow!’ because it is like a little onion, that you can just exfoliate all these layers,” says Cardillo.
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The restaurant is small and intimate but the umpteen bottles of whisky in every crevice and the cabinets behind you, make it akin to a distillery, minus the bulky barrels.
Cardillo’s love for whisky started only over eight years ago when he was first gifted a Glen Ord by one of his suppliers.
“I tasted it and it was phenomenal. That is how I got into single malts and started dabbling in all the Ireland malts&#8230;”
A South African with Italian heritage, Cardillo says he has a palate for Scottish whisky. And for this interview too, whisky-tasting is a prelude.
He gets us to taste the Pogues Irish Whiskey, which is very gentle, soft and easy. My colleague tasted the Jameson Distillery Edition with the orange, brown sugar, ginger, peach and salt taste.
As a first-time whisky-drinker, I understood that not all whisky tastes bad, thanks to Cardillo, who knows how to pick the right taste for different palates.
“This is what it’s all about. People come in, sit down and drink their whisky and they don’t get intimidated when they come to my restaurant,” he says.
The Bottega Whiskey Club, which he started in 2013, boasts of over 2,000 members, mostly from the financial sector, lured to the club through word of mouth.
“We have four types of clients – those that know nothing about whisky and we try and educate you and try and accommodate your palate. Then we get the guys that have been to Scotland and have been collecting for years and years and only buy limited editions. Then you get the guys who buy whisky to stock up their bars. Then you also get the collectors that will drink their whisky,” he says.
The restaurant has over 700 malts, which they use for their whisky-tasting events. They pair the whisky with cigars and sometimes come up with different food pairings.
Surprisingly, for a self-taught whisky expert, Cardillo says that he is not a collector.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2018/05/03/the-party-animal-in-the-lab/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Party Animal In The Lab</a>
“I am not like that. I am the type that needs to know what is in that bottle. I would hate to die one day knowing that somebody is going to be drinking my collection not knowing what was in that bottle,” he says.
But for those that do like to collect their whisky as a form of investment, Cardillo believes they could earn significant returns.
“We have bottles that we bought for R500 ($40) or R600 ($49) and now they are worth a lot of money. The increase in value of the whisky depends on if the distillery closes down. If they are no longer making any more of it, then the demand for that bottle of whisky increases,” he says.
Currently, the Jameson Gold Reserve has been discontinued, so he advises whisky drinkers should buy as many as they can of it, as the value of the bottles are bound to increase by 10%-15%.
“It currently retails at R893 ($73)… So you could look at doubling your money in a couple of years. For example, the Compass Box, they made just over 5,680 bottles; I was retailing them at R2,000 ($163), but I see now three years down the line, they are auctioning them and selling them at R4,800 ($392) to R5,000 ($408),” he says.
However, a whisky club as a business is not as lucrative.
“We turn a lot of stock [from the business], but if I had to do it purely as a business, no, I would not make any money from it. Not when you consider the rentals and other expenses. The club is purely for coming to see what we have and tasting the different kinds of whisky,” says Cardillo.
There is no right or wrong way to drink whisky.
“What you like and what the next person likes are two different things. You can’t get intimidated. You are only supposed to drink the whisky with ice or you are not supposed to drink the whisky with the ice. There are so many rules that are just falling away now,” he says.
The best way to put this to the test is to pour a neat whisky in a glass and drink it. You will be able to taste all the different aromas. Thereafter, pour yourself another glass and pour a bit of water and you will be able to taste the barrel’s wood. It will become spicy as you see the whisky open up, as it becomes cloudy, and you will be able to see the oils release.
<div id="attachment_36577" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36577" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-36577 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Saverio-656-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Saverio-656-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Saverio-656-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Saverio-656-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Saverio-656-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Saverio-656.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Saverio Cardillo. Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla.</div>
“This is why I say when people ask me ‘how are you supposed to drink your whisky’, I say ‘it depends entirely on your palate’,” says Cardillo.
“I once had a gentleman who walked in here the other night and he ordered a Johnnie Walker Blue Label and he drank it with cream soda. I didn’t even cringe.”
His is not limited to just tasting whisky, he also resells whisky for collectors hoping for returns on their long-held bottles.
“…[I] am a little bit sceptical about selling their collections. I sell on behalf of them, and I don’t put my name behind it and I don’t sell it using the name of Bottega. I let everyone know that it is somebody else’s collection,” he says. Cardillo receives the commission from the proceeds of the sale.
“If something goes wrong with the lid or counterfeiting in whisky or it leaks, that is my reputation at stake, and that is what I have to be careful about,” says Cardillo.
Cardillo took his hobby and turned it into a calling imparting knowledge to discerning drinkers, making him a limited edition among restaurateurs.

Saverio-663

The Whisky Whiz On How His Whisky Took Him Far

United States (US) President Barack Obama announced that private companies are providing $12 billion to his Power Africa program, while US firms will invest more than $14 billion towards banking, construction and information technology on the continent.
The US-Africa Summit held in Washington in August focused on sustainable development, trade, collaboration, investment, and America’s commitment to Africa’s security, its democratic development, and its people.
Obama assured Africa’s head of states, gathered in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, that the US wanted to help Africa grow; nothing else. With his charming voice, he dismissed the notion that the US wanted something in return. Those who are not gullible know the US doesn’t do anything for free.
The African Union has 54 member countries. If the US really cares, it should help Africa in its entirety. It came as no surprise that Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe didn’t get an invite. Other black sheep were Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and Catherine Samba-Panza of the Central African Republic.
Some African nations declined to join the global superpower. Sierra Leone and Liberia focused on domestic issues rather than sucking up to the US, while Ebola kept West African countries busy.
Africa is not a charity case and progress can be made on our own terms. Foreign partnerships are vital, but the US is not the only option. China is currently forging trade agreements with several African countries.
Now more than ever, Africa needs education to exploit its resources. Academics Nkem Khumbah and Melvin Foote see this as a more viable option than pumping aid into the hands of corrupt officials.
“There’s a way to make a lasting and low cost investment in Africa’s next generation: Obama must bring education – science and technology in particular – to the forefront of the debate about African development,” wrote Khumbah and Foote in The New York Times.
Africa is experiencing an economic upswing, but its growth is predominantly based on extracting natural resources rather than increasing industrial productivity. Most African nations are far away from making any significant international breakthrough.
This is not rocket science. Power-obsessed African leaders need to understand and implement measures to help their countries grow.
Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian-born economist and author of Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working And How There Is a Better Way for Africa, says donations to Africa provide many points to debate – millions march for it, governments are judged by it and celebrities promote the need for it. Calls for more aid to Africa are growing louder, with advocates pushing for the roughly $50 billion of international assistance that goes to Africa each year to be doubled.
Some, however, argue that aid has made the continent poorer and economic growth slower. The aid culture has left countries more debt-laden and vulnerable to the vagaries of currency markets. This leads to Africa being an unattractive destination for investment.
According to Moyo, despite the aggressive debt-relief campaigns in the 1990s, African countries still pay nearly $20 billion in debt per annum, a stark reminder that aid is not free. In order to keep systems going, debt is repaid at the expense of education and health care. Calls to write off the debt are hollow when it is met with a fresh infusion of aid. We are trapped in a vicious cycle.
“In 2005, just weeks ahead the G8 conference that had Africa at the top of its agenda, the International Monetary Fund published a report entitled ‘Aid Will Not Lift Growth in Africa’. The report cautioned that governments, donors and campaigners should be more modest in their claims that increased aid will solve Africa’s problems. Despite such comments, no serious efforts have been made to wean Africa off this debilitating drug,” Moyo points out.
Obama might have good intentions but Africa, the sleeping giant of the world, needs to wake up and guard its assets: both human and natural resources. It needs to protect itself from the toxicity of foreign aid.

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FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Offering The American Dream

You Only Live Twice

The Social Capital of Stokvels

The Whisky Whiz On How His Whisky Took Him Far

Why Aid Is Bad For Africa