Business

VENTURES AFRICA – Schneider Electric, an energy management firm with operations in 100 countries, has called on Africa to generate “intelligent energy” to support its economic growth. “The challenge is not only to produce more electricity but to produce intelligent energy in order to enable smart growth in Africa,” Mohammed Saad, President Africa, Schneider Electric, [...]

VENTURES AFRICA - The National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), a parastatal under Nigeria’s Ministry of the Environment has presented a bill to the country’s National Assembly that would make oil spillage a criminal offence, the country’s Minister of the Environment, Hadiza Mailafia, said on Monday. “We are working on the proposed bill presented by [...]

By David Stephen VENTURES AFRICA – On May 29, the Lagos Government opened a suspension bridge to the public, at Lekki-Ikoyi axis, a highbrow area of the state – in an amazing first in Nigeria. The bridge is useful to reduction of traffic, being an alternative route that links two areas – bypassing Victoria Island [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Cape Town based venture capital investor and business builder Silvertree Capital, has announced an undisclosed investment in two Nigerian e-commerce sites, Sunlasses.com.ng and Glamour.com.ng. Both of these leading e-commerce sites offer a broad range of top consumer brands to the burgeoning online shopping market and have a free delivery charge throughout the [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Nigerian lender, Mainstreet Bank, on Monday said its failing financial performance has been successfully turned around with profits for year ending December 2012 soaring to N23 billion ($143 million) boosted by cost management in the company. Nigeria’s commercial bank said group earnings shot up to N48 billion ($287 million) while non-performing loans [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Africa’s second largest oil producer, Angola has exported its first Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), with the maiden shipment departing from Soyo northern province of Zaire, to Brazil. According to Angola LNG company, via a joint venture between the state-owned oil and gas company Sonangol, Chevron, BP, ENI and Total, a fleet of [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Speculation is rife in South Africa that FirstRand, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, First National Bank (FNB), is set to launch a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO). According to Business Tech, an online newspaper covering technology matters, the FNB is in talks with South Africa’s third biggest mobile operator Cell C about this [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Public Investment Corporation (PIC), South Africa’s biggest sovereign wealth fund, on Monday said last week’s transaction with Dangote Cement will open up new acquisition prospects in Dangote’s other operations. Head of Resources at PIC, Fidelis Madavo, said these operations included Dangote’s sugar, flour, oil refinery and port operations. Last week PIC said [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Private equity fund, GroFin announced it has invested $2.3 million in two Kenyan mid-sized public transport firms, Wargen and Centaurus, to boost transportation services across the country. The multinational financier disclosed the investment to Business Daily last week adding that it plans to further invest $1.5 million in transport companies by 2014. GroFin [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Speculations emerged over the weekend that JSE-listed media giant, Naspers, could acquire a major stake in RedBus, India’s biggest online bus ticketing company. It is believed that Naspers is trying to become a bigger player in the domestic online travel, which is facing some sort of consolidation. According to India’s Economic Times, the deal could value RedBus [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Nigeria-based general merchandise online retailer JUMIA today announced its one year anniversary, as it moves into a 90,000 sqft warehouse in Lagos. Launched in June 2012 with support from Rocket Internet, JUMIA has grown to become Nigeria’s 4th most visited website, and served over half a million customers, the company said in an official statement. With [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – London-listed fastjet said of Friday it has temporarily shelved plans to launch domestic routes in South Africa. The airline said it wants to focus on rolling out international flights from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Fastjet has been granted permission to launch international flights from Tanzania to South Africa, Zambia and Rwanda after [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Singapore Airlines has signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) with South Africa Tourism and Changi Airport Group to bolster air travel to Africa’s largest economy. Under the cooperation, all parties will explore opportunities and jointly implement strategies aimed at boosting tourist traffic to South Africa through Singapore Airlines’ services to Cape Town [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – About 4, 000 workers at an Anglo Platinum (Amplats) Thembelani shaft in Rustengburg mine staged an underground strike on Friday in protest at the firing of several of their leaders, a union activist said. Reuters quoted Siphamandla Malchanya, an AMCU activist at Amplats as saying: “The workers are staying underground because they [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Nigeria has offered an 80 percent stake in the National Independent Power Project (NIPP) ten plants to private investors. The offer was made on Wednesday in London by the Nigerian Minister of power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo during a road-show organized by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), the builders of the [...]