According to a statement by ECP, the investment into Nairobi Java House is the first private equity deal in east Africa’s restaurant industry. ECP did not disclose the finer details of the transaction, but said that the capital will be used to expand the chain’s operations and the number of locations around Kenya and the broader region.
Nairobi Java House opened its first outlet in 1999 and has since expanded to 18 locations throughout Kenya’s capital city, with new branches set to open in the cities of Mombasa, Nakuru and Kisumu. The chain serves African-grown coffee alongside a full menu that includes everything from hamburgers to Mexican food.
“Nairobi’s affluent and middle class have both embraced Nairobi Java House as a high-quality, affordable restaurant destination. By day, it is frequented by business professionals for a quick snack or a meeting over breakfast, coffee, or lunch; by night and at weekends, the crowd returns with friends and family for socialising and casual dining in the unique family-friendly ambiance,” said ECP in a statement.
As increased Web access and mobile phone penetration transform the way more than 1 billion Africans live and do business, a growing number of websites are looking to solve the distribution woes that have long plagued African filmmakers.
Though their business models and catalogs vary, the sites share common goals: to provide an effective outlet for the distribution of African content; to sidestep the pirates who have crippled homegrown film industries across the continent; to create new revenue streams for African content producers; and to allow Africans living in the diaspora to reconnect with their homelands.
“(The Web) provides a perfect opportunity for pirate-free content distribution based on sustainable models,” says Mike Dearham, former head of sales and acquisitions for South African network M-Net, which launched the online African Film Library, a collection of digitally remastered African classics, like Ousmane Sembene’s “La Noire de… (Black Girl)” and Djibril Diop Mambety’s “Touki Bouki.”
— Sites reel in auds for African pics - Entertainment News, TV News, Media - VarietyVenture Capital for Africa (VC4Africa), an online community of venture capitalists, angels and entrepreneurs, today announced the launch of new tools aimed at helping people raise funds for their startups.
The network, which is dedicated to building business on the African continent, claims that the new tools make private investment easy, secure and social. It also says that they allow entrepreneurs to register their funding needs.
These are then shared for investors, registered as part of the VC4Africa investor network, to review. Any investor interested in the venture can reportedly engage the entrepreneur for more details. and if they like the terms the venture is offering, step forward as a lead investor.
The venture then goes into fundraising mode for 90 days in which the entrepreneur and lead investor can attract additional support.
This is the next step in VC4Africa’s efforts to help close the startup-funding gap, bringing quality entrepreneurs and qualified investors closer together.
One of your goals is to encourage the wider Nigerian diaspora to repatriate skills and capital for the benefit of the country and its economy. Explain how you hope to achieve this?
Bakrie Delano Africa is seeking to not only derive an attractive return on its investments, but also to create jobs, permanently, in Nigeria. Nigeria requires foreign direct investment to grow, but this is less attractive if companies investing there do this via a foreign workforce.
We want to invest in Nigeria to generate a meaningful profit, but we also want to put something back into the country enabling the workforce to develop its own skills. In turn, this will make Nigeria even more efficient benefiting workers and investors alike.
The more Bakrie Delano Africa can be seen as succeeding in this respect, the more other companies (including members of the Nigerian diaspora) will feel comfortable, and be attracted to, making similar investments to ours.
An increasing number of African entrepreneurs are now seeing China as a land of opportunity. In the town of Jintan, which is connected to Beijing by a super-fast modern eight lane highway, one Zambian has taken that lesson very much to heart.
Enock Mundia is co-owner of Shanghai Liberty Apparel, which turns out a million items of clothing a month for big international brands such as Uniqlo and Eddie Bauer. It even exports clothing back to Zambia. It is a big place, employing some 3,500 people.
Mr Mundia is an amiable, upbeat man, proud of what he has achieved in the five years since he acquired his interest in the firm. He says its much easier doing business here than in Zambia.
“The infrastructure is so good here,” he says over the racket of the endless ranks of sewing machines clattering away.
“From point A to point B, to transport your goods is so fast.”
But despite the sheer convenience of building his business here, Mr Mundia is still a firm believer in the economy back home and maintains that trade between China and Africa is essential.
He seems a little exasperated at the criticisms aimed at China’s involvement in Africa.
“The African people right now, they need investors who can come and invest quickly and improve the livelihood of the African people,” he says. “So if China is doing this, why not?”
Slideshare presentation by UK group based on existing market data from IMF, Economist et al
Jennifer Roberti, MTN’s executive, group marketing, admits to having mixed feelings about the achievement. MTN makes its debut in the Top 100 at 88th, with a brand value of $9.3bn.
“On the one hand we’re thrilled, but there is a part of me that feels it’s about time,” she says.
With its multinational presence and more than 170m subscribers, Ms Roberti says she can think of “a lot of western brands that are included in global listings, and receive a lot of attention, that don’t have the same reach and magnitude as MTN”. Ms Roberti is not alone in believing that – in terms of brands and other respects – Africa’s time has come.
Kr Raghu, Unilever’s vice-president for brand building & marketing operations, Africa, talks of three phases for brands there.
“Africa has become a place where you will make money, not lose money,” said Graca Machel, the wife of former President Nelson Mandela and a renowned women and children’s rights activist.
She addressed delegates at the “Money, Power and Sex: the Paradox of Unequal Growth” conference organised by the Open Society Institute of Southern Africa May 22 to 24 in Cape Town, South Africa.
