Company in Southern Africa

  • FirstRand to Cut Lending in Another Blow to African Economy

    SOUTH AFRICA, 2016/03/16 Africa’s economic troubles took a turn for the worse, with the continent’s biggest bank saying it will rein in lending. FirstRand Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Johan Burger said the bank is curbing credit in response to an increase in defaults, a commodity-price slump and slowing consumer request in its biggest markets, which include South Africa, Nigeria and Zambia. “This year, we’ve taken a further decision to make further cuts on credit granting, so investment increase will drop,” Burger said Tuesday by phone. “The retail cycle has turned and the rest of Africa has as well seen some uptick in non-performing loans.”

  • Barclays Africa scaling back not linked to economic woes

    RUSSIA, 2016/03/14 Barclays's plan to scale back its Africa operations is linked to world regulatory challenges, not unfavorable economic conditions on the continent, the bank's Africa chief executive has said. "We did not make this decision because of the economic cycle," Maria Ramos said in an interview in Johannesburg. "The regulatory environment has changed globally and it's additional difficult for large banks to hold on to subsidiaries like ours," she said. The British lender early this month announced that it will sell down its 62.3 % interest in Barclays Africa to just 20 % over the next two to three years, fueling speculation over the decision.

  • Jaguar Land Rover on its business in sub-Saharan Africa

    ANGOLA, 2015/12/11 Nigeria and Angola remain two of Jaguar Land Rover’s major markets in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the company’s director of operations for the region, Nigel Clarke. This is despite both economies feeling the result of the drop in oil prices over the last year. Angola gets roughly two-thirds of its revenue from oil. The luxury car manufacturer, with its sub-Saharan headquarters in Pretoria, exports the bulk of its vehicles to eight markets in the region – Angola, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. However, over the next two years Jaguar Land Rover will focus on growing its business in six smaller markets – Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, Malawi, Mozambique – through local country partners. “Due to the expansion of our office in Pretoria and the fact a lot of of our processes and systems are presently in place, which has taken a long time, we are much additional ‘fitter’ to take on these markets.”

  • Strive Masiyiwa: If I started again I’d do agriculture, says telecoms tycoon

    ZIMBABWE, 2015/12/11 Zimbabwean tycoon Strive Masiyiwa made his money in the mobile telecoms business, but if he were to start all over again, he would bet on agriculture. Speaking at the opening of this year’s African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) in Zambia’s capital Lusaka, Masiyiwa made a case for the opportunities in the agriculture industry. The Zimbabwean billionaire is chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), an organisation set up in 2006 to support smallholder farmers with the goal of reducing poverty and hunger.

  • Huawei plans to promote Africa’s digital economy by building a better connected Africa

    CHINA, 2015/12/10 Huawei has called for enhanced cooperation between China and Africa in building a better connected world in order to promote the digital economy in Africa. As the only representative from the Telecom industry present at the 5th Conference of Chinese and African Entrepreneurs, a side event of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), Huawei expressed its continued efforts to building a better connected Africa. During his address at the event, Charles Ding, Senior Vice President of Huawei, said, “Huawei has been focused on building a better connected Africa for 17 years. We continuously leverage our world innovation capabilities and cooperate with governments, customers, and industrial partners to increase telecom network coverage significantly to achieve a win-win cooperation. We’ve deployed additional than 50% of wireless base stations, over 70% of LTE networks and at least 50,000KM of optical fibre to provide better telecom connectivity to Africa. Connectivity is the cornerstone to the development of a digital economy in Africa. “

  • Standard Bank Group has expanded its already extensive East African footprint

    ETHIOPIA, 2015/10/31 Standard Bank Group has expanded its by presently extensive East African footprint with the official opening of a representative office in Ethiopia. This means that Standard Bank, which is Africa’s major bank by assets, has a continent-wide footprint in 20 African nations. The representative office, which is based in Addis Ababa, was opened by Standard Bank Chief Executive, Ben Kruger. It will act as an entry point for clients seeking to invest in Ethiopia and will be administered by Standard Bank’s chief office in South Africa.

  • Steve Burd, Acting Vice President of Sales for DHL SSA

    CHINA, 2015/10/31 The African continent is experiencing rapid retail expansion, and is being compared to China in 1987 at the same time as it was predicated to be the next large thing. A.T. Kearney’s 2015 World Retail Development Index has listed Sub-Saharan Africa as the ‘large story’ for 2040, similar to that of China 30 years ago, where today, retailers are expanding four to five times faster than retailers in the United States and Europe. Recognizing this potential, DHL (dpdhl.com) is playing a key role in growing retail on the continent via its current footprint of 5 800 retail outlets across Sub Saharan Africa (SSA), not by building its own bricks and mortar branches but by partnering with local business owners who act as DHL resellers. Steve Burd, Acting Vice President of Sales for DHL SSA, says, “Thousands of vendors – such as electronics stores, travel agents and stationery stores – presently offer DHL Express services, alongside their existing product offerings.

  • The comparison website Click n Compare is taking Africa by storm

    SOUTH AFRICA, 2015/08/21 CNC Group (CNC), parent company of Click n Compare (http://www.clickncompare.co.za), the South African-focused comparison website is expanding their African footprint next a very successful year with a strong month on month increase of 40%. Alongside the South African success of the brand comes presently their launch of a new consumer-facing brand, CompareGuru, into both Nigeria and Kenya. Established in 2013, Click n Compare is a one-stop portal for African consumers who are looking to source services and be educated in hard-to-navigate verticals, such as insurance, mobile, broadband, and banking. The Internet has empowered consumers to access additional data than ever before, but it has as well made it that much harder to zero in on exactly what one is next. CNCs ultimate goal is as a result to help people save time and money with the help of side-by-side comparisons.

  • Louis Berger to support sub-Saharan Africa transportation sector development under A.C.P.-European Community Partnership

    AFRICA, 2015/07/22 Louis Berger (http://www.louisberger.com), as part of a consortium led by NTU International A/S, has been hired to support the development of the transportation sector in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (A.C.P.) Group of States, with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. This 2.3 euro million ($2.6 million USD) project aims to promote inclusive political, economic and social development through enhanced regional integration by strengthening African nations’ ability to regulate, organize and finance better inter-regional and continental transportation infrastructure through safe trans boundary transportation corridors and integrated transportation policies. The project as well will support evolution toward the Millennium Development Goals in A.C.P. nations.

  • South Africa: Eskom's Class Agenda

    SOUTH AFRICA, 2015/06/25 Eskom has been plagued by inefficiencies and scandals. There's been load shedding, exorbitantly large managerial salaries, and scandals around tenders and coal-supply costs. Over and above this has been Eskom's request for significant tariff increases to supposedly overcome a funding shortfall despite the fact that the power utility recorded a R7 billion profit last year. Eskom's troubles have as well been used as a pretext, by some, to once again call for its full privatisation. The ANC is considering selling equity in Eskom to pension funds.
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