Category Archives: Main

Has the PE industry failed Sub-Saharan Africa?

View from the Carlton Centre, Africa's tallest building. Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. Photo Credit: Adamina (www.flickr.com).

African PE (Private equity) firms raised less than $20bn in the decade to 2018, equivalent to just 2.5 per cent of the capital raised by the world’s emerging markets, according to a Preqin report. Moreover, most of that African capital was invested into the relatively advanced economies of South Africa and North Africa, with very […]

The impact of COVID-19 on finance and investment in Africa

An illustration created by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the structure of the coronavirus now named COVID-19. Source: ScienceSource.com

By Morne van der Merwe, Managing Partner, and Wildu du Plessis, Head of Africa, Baker McKenzie Johannesburg The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has resulted in mass production shutdowns and supply chain disruptions due to port closures in China, causing global ripple effects across all economic sectors in a rare “twin supply-demand shock”. With South Africa having just […]

How fintechs are making Africa a leading global Innovation Hub

Image by i_am_zews

In a continent where over 60% of the adult population is unbanked and the financial sector is considerably underdeveloped, fintech has been a welcomed revolution that is seen to be boosting Africa’s financial infrastructure. With a growing population, an increasing rate of mobile and internet penetration, combined with a substantial need for financial inclusion, Africa […]

How Black Friday is giving Africa’s economy a lift

It is quite phenomenal how in recent years, both ecommerce players and retailers have used Black Friday to sweep thrifty shoppers off their feet. So much that the shopping event is no longer restricted to a single-day shopping spree but has rather taken over the entire month to become Black November. If you drove around […]

Demand for African Talent is Increasing

Strategies to share talent between Africa and France By Kiné Seck Mercier A young woman spends her youth in Nigeria, leaving to attend a university in London. She goes on to work in the United States, Ghana, South America, Kenya and Zambia, finally settling in Paris. In many ways, she is illustrating an increasingly common […]

The impact of Brexit on South Africa and Africa

View from the Carlton Centre, Africa's tallest building. Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. Photo Credit: Adamina (www.flickr.com).

By Morne van der Merwe, Managing Partner and Head of the Corporate/M&A Practice,  Baker McKenzie Johannesburg  Countries in Africa are preparing for the reality that a hard Brexit could lead to increased risk aversion and reduced investor appetite for trade in the region. Akinwumi Adesina, president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), said recently that […]

Tearing down barriers for the growth of African rural e-commerce

A man rides a bicycle on a market road in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Image by Oxford Media Library

By Josephine Wawira The rise and growth of e-commerce in the world and primarily in Africa has created a lot of business opportunities, not only in urban but also in rural areas. The good news is that there is undoubtedly increased connectivity, reaching even the previously inaccessible remote villages across the continent and connecting them […]

Why is America involved in the Mozambique “tuna scandal”?

A view from the ferry to Katembe of the Maputo CBD 2014. 24 May 2014. Author AP1MZ (Wikipedia)

If you do business globally as a multinational company, employee or consultant, you might wish to follow the convoluted U.S. legal case against Lebanese ship salesman Jean Boustani. Boustani was the chief sales executive of a global shipbuilding company, Privinvest, based in the Middle East with operating shipyards in France, Germany and elsewhere. Privinvest has […]

Hospitality industry development in Africa.

Interviews with global business leaders. Join Mark Willis, Chief Executive Officer, Middle East & Africa, Accor at #AHIF from 23-25 September 2019, Addis, Ethiopia. He will be speaking at our regional leader’s panel to discuss Accor’s growth strategies in Africa, having 143 hotels across the continent and another 60+ to open in the next 36 […]

Can e-commerce be Africa’s economic goldmine?

Image by Maxx-Studio

Digital economy in Africa is snowballing, and in the process it’s creating new jobs and opportunities for digital entrepreneurs to explore a larger web market. Though e-commerce represents only 0.6% of all the transactions done in Africa, as compared to 12% in the USA and 20% in China; the budding nature of the industry does […]