We called it. Nigeria, the African Development Bank’s (AfDB), biggest shareholder, finally landed the bank’s presidency at its fourth attempt.
Final figures showed Akinwumi Adesina, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development in the administration of former president, Goodluck Jonathan, was backed by 58.01% of all shareholders, to defeat Chad’s finance minister, Kordje Bedoumra (34.48%), and Cape Verde’s finance minister, Cristina Duarte (2.87%).
Africa’s largest country, which holds 9.3% of the AfDB, almost double the total of the next two biggest African shareholders, had failed on three previous attempts to capture the presidency of the bank since its inception in 1964, scuttled by an unwritten rule that Africa’s biggest economies shouldn’t vie for big continental positions and the discomfort of smaller nations wary of domination and stronger candidates than its own.
“Today, I have been given a great responsibility,” said Adesina after beating seven other candidates that had contested one of the most open election processes for a global development finance institution that mirrors the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank.
“I will be a president for all. I will not let you down.”
In six rounds of voting, in Abidjan, the capital of CÔte d’Ivoire, spanning just over four hours, Nigeria’s alliances proved the more resilient. In the first round, Adesina was second with 26% of the overall vote, trailing Duarte who led by 29.5%, with the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)-backed Thomas Sakala of Zimbabwe third, with 13.5%. Sierra Leone’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Samura Kamara, whose country holds 0.25%, was eliminated after receiving 0.3%. No figures were available for the latter rounds at the time of going to press.
Adesina takes over Africa’s only triple-A rated development finance institution, which last year increased project funding by 15% to $7.6 billion, largely in infrastructure, adding to the $28 billion poured in the decade to 2014, versus $18 billion in the four decades between 1964 and 2004.
Aside from infrastructure, outgoing president, Donald Kaberuka of Rwanda, also focused on attracting private sector money to the bank, an effort that saw South Africa’s FirstRand and the bank partnering in creating a $200-million fund to boost African trade. The inclusion of women in economic development was also key, as well as continuing efforts to reduce conflict through the bank’s Fragile States initiative.
Both Adesina and Nigeria’s former Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, under whose watch Nigeria supported Adesina, emphasized inclusiveness in the bank’s decision-making process, seeking to allay the fears of marginalization raised by smaller African countries who have now seen the number one and number two economies take leadership of the continent’s foremost institutions after South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was elected Chairperson of the African Union in 2012 in heavy lobbying African analysts say came at a heavy political price for President Jacob Zuma.
“We will be inclusive in our approach,” Okonjo-Iweala told FORBES AFRICA after Adesina’s victory. “It’s a great 50th anniversary gift from God to the country. We appreciate it and we take the responsibility very seriously. We will not abuse it.”
In his statement to the board of governors in support of his nomination, Adesina said he wanted to help build a competitive and more integrated Africa while ensuring that growth is more inclusive. To achieve this, his strategy combines five key themes including some from the AfDB’s 10-year strategy outlined at the 2014 meetings and the Africa Union’s Agenda 2063.
That seeks an integrated infrastructure program, growing the private sector, creating jobs for women and youth, reviving Africa’s rural economies and pursuing regional integration through transnational infrastructure and the expansion of regional markets.
“Given the bank’s strength and Africa’s needs, the next phase of the AfDB Group is to take development to the nooks and corners of Africa, through inclusive growth that transforms the lives of the urban and rural populations of Africa,” says Adesina.
It is a plan the board of governors of the bank appear to have bought and that will be tested over the next five years, as Africa’s growth shifts from being externally driven to leveraging off the increasing power of African consumers and economies that have made Africa, alongside India, as the only regional nodes of economic expansion in the world this year.

The Man With Africa On His Shoulders

The African Development Bank (AfDB) may be about to get its first president from its biggest shareholder – Nigeria.
Africa’s largest country, which holds 9.3% of the AfDB, almost double the total of the two next biggest shareholders, has twice failed to capture the presidency of the bank since its inception in 1964. That may be about to change.
Akinwumi Adesina, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development in the outgoing administration of Goodluck Jonathan, is one of three frontrunners to succeed Donald Kaberuka. Cape Verde’s Finance Minister Cristina Duarte, the first woman to contest the presidency and the first from Portuguese-speaking Africa, and Zimbabwe’s Thomas Sakala, with the backing of the Southern African Development Community, are seen as the other strong candidates. The election takes place on May 28 during the bank’s annual meetings in Abidjan, the commercial capital of Côte d’Ivoire.
Kaberuka’s successor takes over Africa’s only triple-A rated institution that has implemented more than 3,000 programs and projects, worth more than $50 billion. Under Kaberuka, a former Rwandan finance minister, the bank focused on infrastructure, proffered technical advice that some attribute to Africa’s resilience after the 2008 global financial crisis, and has started to attract private capital to help build Africa’s roads, railways and ports.
“Kaberuka has done an excellent job, becoming the leading voice for African development,’’ says Earl Gast, Senior International Adviser at Covington &amp; Burling.  “The ideal next AfDB president will be a global visionary, an inspirational leader, and an outstanding manager of a large, multinational bureaucracy…”
In addition to Adesina, Duarte and Sakala, there are five other candidates: Ethiopian Finance Minister, Sufian Ahmed, who has overseen the economic transformation of Africa’s second most populous nation; former Tunisian Finance Minister, Jaloul Ayed; Chad’s Finance Minister, Kordje Bedoumra; Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister, Samura Kamara; and Mali’s Vice President of the Islamic Development Bank, Birama Boubacar.
With a PhD in agricultural economics, Adesina, who has led Nigeria’s drive to feed its 170 million people, says he will focus on consolidating Kaberuka’s legacy while building a more cohesive institution to drive Africa’s development agenda through regional integration and innovation.
“I will position the bank into a more nimble and effective institution that can effectively anticipate and address emerging and futures challenges for development of Africa,” says Adesina in his presentation to the bank’s board of governors. “I will transform and revive Africa’s dead economic spaces in rural areas through investments in Africa’s rich agricultural resource and agro-industrial developments that turn those resources into value-added commodities.’’
With regional politics, shareholding, qualifications and language coming into play, analysts say the election is one of the most transparent at a global financial institution and the winner will need to build broad alliances to win both the African vote and the non-regional members’ support.
To win, a candidate must capture 50.01% from Africa’s 53 governments and 50.01% from the so-called non-regional members comprising of donor nations, who hold 40% of the bank’s capital. Africans control 60% and the bank president must always be an African.
Aside from their new initiatives, the next leader of the AfDB will take over the implementation of the bank’s 10-year strategy through to 2022 which focuses on the development of agriculture, fragile states, food security and gender.
They will also need to further other initiatives started by Kaberuka, such as tapping private capital into a new source of funds for developing infrastructure and helping smaller countries utilize their natural resources more effectively and ridding the continent of conflict, says Scott Morris, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Global Development.
Whoever it is, the next AfDB President will be judged on the steps they took to grow Africa’s economy and lift people out of poverty.

Who Should Africa Bank On?

“When sailing a boat or driving a bus, I don’t want to be in the passenger seat, I want to drive.” These are the words of former MXit CEO, Alan Knott-Craig Junior, who stepped down on October 19. He and the shareholders knew where they wanted to take MXit, but didn’t agree on how to get there.
In 2013, instead of sitting in the boardroom, Knott-Craig won’t be driving a bus but a motorhome, contemplating his future. He bought MXit in October 2011 through his company, World of Avatar, and announced his resignation in October 2012; in the same breath MXit announced a R100 million ($11.4 million) investment.
The word is that Knott-Craig clashed with shareholders and FirstRand heavyweights Paul Harris and GT Ferreira.
Knott-Craig sold the shares in World of Avatar, which bought MXit from its founder Herman Heunis; who in turn sold all his MXit shares to World of Avatar and is now on sabbatical photographing wildlife in Botswana.
Knott-Craig will also be taking time out to reflect on his decisions and traveling.
“They bought me out, it was quite emotional. In retrospect it was a long time coming,” he says.
Duncan McLeod, tech columnist, founder and editor of TechCentral says it appears the disagreement was largely between Knott-Craig and Paul Harris. He also said that Knott-Craig’s management style, which included not taking minutes; allowing staff to wear baggy pants and having an unstructured approach, was appreciated by his employees, especially at iBurst.
“It depends on who takes over MXit. They’re facing fierce competition [from] BBM and WhatsApp as the market moves to smartphones,” says Mcleod.
Knott-Craig believes his former business will prosper.
“It’s got a lot of money invested in it. It makes a lot of money. It’s got a lot of employees; a lot of users and that’s the ecosystem. It’s not going anywhere anytime soon; it’s on the right track. My [former] co-shareholders are not fools, they wouldn’t be investing in this thing unless they thought we had a chance. So it’s quite exciting,” says Knott-Craig.
For now, Knott-Craig is off on holiday for six months; he’ll travel the States with his wife and two children in a Winnebago mobile home. He will have plenty of time to consider his future on the open road. When he gets back he wants to study South African history, maybe he would do well to study South African boardroom politics as well.

Knott Mixing It Anymore

It was fear more than ambition that drove Venancio Matusse to become one of Mozambique’s richest people. Terror swept through the mind of Matusse as he stood helplessly watching his baby son fight for breath on a December morning in 1997.
The diagnosis from the doctor was grim. Little Venancio Junior needed heart surgery and that meant an expensive mercy trip across the border to South Africa. The doctors who could save the child’s life were at the private Sunninghill Hospital, in Johannesburg, a seven-hour drive away.
“I had to try to find money for the surgery. My friends in private business lent me the money, but when I came back I realized l could not pay for the health of my kids; my job did not provide for that, so it set me thinking,” he says.
Until then 48-year-old Matusse, who was born in the wilds of Gaza Province, lived a quiet life in academia at Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, where he lectured in engineering.
“My training as an engineer and teaching at university gave me a way of looking into opportunities. For me, an opportunity is a challenge.”
The first challenge for Matusse was to set up in business before he left the security of a university post. As an engineer, his skills were in demand, as the economy of Mozambique began to stir after decades of stagnation. There were consultancy jobs on offer in Maputo and Matusse worked on everything from quarries to roads and railways.
“I decided in those early days that the result of my consultancy was going to be shares instead of money. I needed capital more than I needed cash,” he says.
The breakthrough came when Matusse became one of 42 shareholders who make up an elite group of consultants called Mozambique Gestores, specializing in big projects like ports.
Since then, Matusse has built up an impressive portfolio of interests in companies employing 300 people and turning over tens of millions of dollars. Among them: Paper Soft, an IT solutions company; engineering company BMG; a 45% stake in management system solutions companies Socarto and Ambisig; and a partnership with a Portuguese consulting company.
“I have a problem with routine. I acquire companies and let my partners run them,” he says.
It was another glorious Maputo morning when we met at the Polana Hotel, perched on a cliff overlooking the deep blue Indian Ocean.
The Polana, with its wrought-iron staircases, large chandeliers and white pillars, always puts me in mind of the Titanic. It is the hotel where the deals are done these days. With a glance around the luxurious lounge, you can pick out the tables where business people from Mozambique are cutting deals with foreign investors.
Matusse is fresh from a memorable Friday night out in Maputo. For a good night out in Africa, the capital
of Mozambique must be at the top
of the list.
“I work hard and I play hard,” he says with a smile.
We sit down around the marble table. Matusse comes across as unassuming, softly spoken and keen to tell his story—a man bold enough to talk of his connections with President Armando Guebuza.
“You will find him in my companies, but from long before he was president,” he says breezily.
Fernando Lima, a journalist based in Maputo, believes President Guebuza is encouraging a new breed of entrepreneurs like Matusse in Mozambique.
“The president likes smart people and young people with ideas. What we are seeing is the emergence of an educated and committed black elite,” says Lima.
Another journalist, who asked not to be named, says: “Matusse is close to the president, has influence and can open doors for people.”
Matusse himself is concentrating on business and looking to the future. In 2002, he launched his own investment and consultancy company, Mutxisso, named after his great-grandfather. The company concentrates on attracting investment and supplying skills in projects for what is arguably Mozambique’s greatest need.
“We need infrastructure. The weak points in Mozambique are infrastructure and training.
It hasn’t always been plain sailing,” he says.
“I have made mistakes in choosing people. I always try to retrain people if I can, which is not always the best option.
“I have also made mistakes in projects. Once I had to turn around two factories, both making spare parts for locomotives. The factories had only one customer: CFM, the national freight railway company of Mozambique. That proved a problem to have all our eggs in one basket… I think all of this has taught me perseverance; you have to be focused on what you want.”
Matusse is reputed to be one of the richest people in Mozambique. He says he doesn’t know what he is worth; merely that he doesn’t owe anyone anything.
And what of young Venancio Junior, the sickly son who set off his father’s remarkable entrepreneurial career?
He is now 15 years old, healthy, a footballer and as strong as a horse.
“One day he says he wants to be an engineer, and the next day he comes to me and says he wants to be a footballer,” chuckles Matusse.
“He is going to be an engineer; I just haven’t told him yet!”

The Fear That   Made A Fortune

When Daphne Mashile Nkosi woke up one day, she was told by her lawyers that she had been removed as a director and wasn’t even a lowly shareholder of the multi-billion dollar company she had built from scratch, she thought someone was playing a joke on her. A sick joke at that, for not only did Kalahari Resources have billions in the bank, after securing loans to develop a manganese mine, executive chairperson Mashile Nkosi was still in mourning after burying her husband—who was also her business partner—just a few days earlier.
In one of the most bizarre stories in South African business history, Mashile Nkosi’s name, and those of her fellow directors, had been removed from the database of the Department of Trade and Industry’s Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office. Things were made even more surreal by the fact that the group laying claim to the assets was led by the late Sandile Majali, a dubious character and controversial businessman who was well connected in the upper echelons of the ruling African National Congress. Majali had never been in any way connected to Kalahari, so his move was not preceded by any hostile takeover bid or shareholder revolt, or anything like that.
Mashile Nkosi brought an urgent interdict before the Johannesburg High Court.
Outside court, radio, television and newspapers were all keen to hear her side of the story. But the more she told of her hitherto unknown rise and rise in the mining industry, she says, the more doubts there were about whether she was indeed the real power behind her growing empire.
“I listened to some of the comments. The more I told my story, the more certain people doubted whether these assets belonged to me.”
Rumors and conspiracy theories started flying thick and fast.
“Some were saying nasty things like ‘you send a thief to catch a thief,’” Mashile Nkosi says. “Others thought, ‘she’s either corrupt or slept her way up to the top.’ I said to myself: ‘what did you expect? You got into a man’s world and changed the course of history. You have to go through this pain to make your gains. Stay focused.’”
About a month after the filing of the interdict, the court ruled in favor of Mashile Nkosi. Majali was arrested for fraud, and was also asked to pay Mashile Nkosi’s legal costs.
Mashile Nkosi’s foray into the male-dominated and often dangerous world of mining started long before the 2010 corporate hijacking incident.
In 1999, as a community development activist leading a women’s rights NGO at the time, she was invited by current Exxaro CEO Sipho Nkosi (no relation to her or her late husband) to form part of the Eyesizwe consortium that was to bid for four South African collieries belonging to multinationals Anglo American and BHP Billiton.
“Sipho said he wanted a very strong structure,” Mashile Nkosi remembers. “We put the structure together, went for presentations to Anglo and BHP, and got the business.”
As soon as she was in on the Eyesizwe deal—she is still a shareholder and serves on its board and those of its subsidiaries—she started being courted by other consortia. She soon discovered that many of these syndicates just wanted women “tag alongs” so that they could show that they had women in their midst.
“The men would have their own discussions and reserve 3-4% for women. I sat back and thought, ‘it’s not going to help if all I do is just scream and shout. What is it that I need to do?’
I decided to look for an opportunity that I would start from scratch, control and own, and be the one who would bring in the men.”
In 2001, the relatively unknown Mashile Nkosi applied to the government for manganese prospecting rights. She got them four years later.
Together with her husband, Dan Nkosi, they raised R12.5 million for a pre-feasibility study that confirmed the existence of manganese in the Kuruman area of the Northern Cape province of South Africa.
The following year state financier, the Independent Development Corporation (IDC), granted the company R60 million to do a feasibility study.
Once the feasibility study was successfully completed, the IDC took 20% of Kalahari, and the two entities began to search for a strategic equity partner. After receiving expressions of interest from 19 companies from all over the world, they chose Arcelor Mittal. The world’s leading steel producer now owns 50% of Kalagadi Manganese, Mashile Nkosi’s Kalahari Resources has 40%, and the rest (10%) is owned by the IDC.
Kalagadi is sitting on just under a billion tons of manganese, a commodity tipped for rapid growth in South Africa. The manganese in South Africa is of high quality, with low carbon, making it sought after by steel makers. The country holds a quarter of the world market and its manganese mines are found in the Kalahari Basin in the Northern Cape. Analysts are saying it is likely to be a boom year for manganese this year.
The Kalagadi project includes a R4.2 billion smelter that will be based at the Coega industrial development zone in the South African coastal city of Port Elizabeth. The smelter is part of an R11 billion project that includes a mine and sinter plant.
By June, Mashile Nkosi says, the company should start producing three million tons of manganese ore, 1.7 million tons of beneficiated sinter, all to be shipped to the Coega smelter for beneficiation.
While the journey has not been easy—water and electricity supply problems meant Kalagadi had to buy generators and truck in water while it negotiated with state utilities—the project is already helping to revive the local economy.
The mine employs 1,600 people, while a further 1,600 are employed by sub-contractors who are engaged in a variety of services ranging from laundry and food to engineering and other specialized services. The water pipeline currently being installed, as well as the tarred roads being erected, will assist farmers and the community.
“The difference between me and other people is not that I’m intelligent. I put in extra hours. I push. I work very hard. And as long as I am making a difference, I’m happy. When you see Africa on CNN or the BBC, it’s hungry kids with flies on their mouths. We should be using our minerals to build our countries, to build our continent. Not what some people do—get a license and then sell it to Australians or Europeans.”
Mashile Nkosi’s life has been lived through breaking rules, banishing stereotypes and confounding expectations. The youngest of four children, two boys and two girls, she says she was always different.
Growing up in the former gold rush town of Pilgrim’s Rest, in Mpumalanga, where she was born, she was inspired by her grandmother, who brought up 13 grandchildren single-handedly from proceeds of traditional brew, cakes and everything else she could lay her hands on.
When she was four or five and taken to Johannesburg to join her biological parents, she learnt just how tough and unfair life could be when she saw how her “never satisfied” father treated her “beautiful” mother—“like a second class citizen, even though she did so much for him.” Mashile Nkosi was incensed. “I told myself I will never be abused in a relationship. So in my choice of people I would later go out with, I was clear that I would never be abused.”
Any man who thought he would abuse her would have had to think twice anyway, for when she was younger she was always her “weak” older brother’s keeper, fighting for him against other boys and beating the male species in their own game.
You could argue, in mining, she is doing the same.

Tag: shareholder

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

The Man With Africa On His Shoulders

Who Should Africa Bank On?

Knott Mixing It Anymore

The Fear That Made A Fortune

How The Feisty Queen Of Manganese Lost Her Crown