Strategies & Solutions

VENTURES AFRICA – Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. has announced plans to increase sales and marketing efforts in Europe and Africa with the June opening of a sales and design center in London and the appointment of company-authorized independent sales representatives in the United Kingdom, central Europe, Turkey and Nigeria. In addition, the company has positioned Pete [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Mercedez Benz plant in South Africa’s eastern seaboard city of East London attained a court order late on Monday aimed at forcing workers to abandon their protest. Workers at the car maker’s assembly plant had gone on a wildcat strike at the end of last week after the firm allegedly threatened to [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – The shares of South Africa’s mobile phone operator, Vodacom, lost 1.14 percent to R114.50 at the close of the JSE on Monday. Traders attributed this battering to the general state of the market on the JSE where stocks got heavy punishment. BDLive reported that Vodacom’s headline earnings per share for 12 months [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – South Africa’s telecommunication giants, Vodacom, MTN and Dimension are preparing for a hostile takeover of Neotel, the country’s fixed line operator, it emerged on Friday. It was speculated on Friday that these JSE-listed companies were at an advanced stage to take over the company. A well-placed source told Ventures Africa: “Things look [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Nigerian lender, Diamond Bank Plc felt the brunt of aggrieved contract workers on Wednesday as they protested the bank’s allegedly unfair labour practices at its headquarters in Lagos. The protesting contract workers, from various contract vendors and agencies, assembled in front of the office at about 8 a.m, shutting down operations for the day. The [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Orascom Construction Industries’ (OCI) parent company, OCI N.V., on Tuesday said it will go-ahead with a bid to buy shares in OCI, its listed subsidiary. According to Ahram Online, the parent company’s offer will cut the price initially proffered to shareholders from LE280 to LE255 a share. Additionally, to close the deal, [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – All the “boxes are ticked” for rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) to downgrade South Africa later this year or early next year, according to a London-based analyst. “However, a more serious deterioration in domestic security surrounding the mining sector could lead to an earlier downgrade,” Peter Montalto, an analyst at Nomura [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – UAC of Nigerian Plc. (UACN) has signed a strategic partnership with South African-based Imperial Holdings Limited for the later to acquire 49 percent equity in its wholly-owned subsidiary, MDS Logistics Plc. This comes after UACN announced that it had sold a 51 percent share acquisition of Livestock Feeds Plc, a company that [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Egypt’s Prime Minister Hesham Kandil has implored Turkish businessmen to invest in the Suez canal as the North African nation plans to turn the canal into a “development corridor” by establishing industrial zones on its left and right banks. He asked Turkish businessmen not to see Egypt as a single country with [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Telecom Egypt on Sunday said plans are afoot to launch its mobile services in Egypt by July this year. Egypt’s only fixed-line operator told the market this will happen after it has received its mobile operating licence from the country’s regulator. The company is seeking to commence mobile phone services to help [...]

VENTURES AFRICA- United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc. has recorded bullish growth for the year 2012 as its profit surged over 905 percent to N54.8 billion ($370.4 million) from the N6.8 billion ($43.1 million) loss it recorded the previous year. UBA’s audited financial results for the for the year ended December 31, 2012, released at the [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Income derived from Africa’s natural resources is currently widening the disparity between the rich and poor instead of closing it, the Africa Progress Report has revealed. According to a Johannesburg-based analyst, the revelation was shocking given the fact that many thought the discovery of oil and gas in African countries was closing the [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Adcock Ingram, a SouthAfrican pharmaceutical company, on Thursday received non-binding proposals for potential transaction to acquire 100% of, or a controlling interest in the company’s securities. Interestingly, none of the proposals are from Bidvest, which earlier indicated interest in the drugmaker’s stakes. According to Adcock, no new proposal has been received from [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) on Thursday said it will pay $10 million Canadian dollars over five years to South Africa’s National Treasury’s Technical Assistance Unit (TAU) to improve the functioning of South Africa’s government agencies. South Africa’s Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan and Canadian Minister of International Co-operation, Julian Fantino, have signed [...]

VENTURES AFRICA – Nigerian Breweries Plc. has revealed that it has been unable to increase its dividend policy for shareholders for the financial year ended December 31, 2012 because it had to plough back majority of its profits into the acquisition of breweries in the financial year. The company said the dilution in its bottom [...]