Verdant Capital continues to be highly active in the fertiliser & agri-inputs sector in Africa in 2016, following in 2015 the sale of Greenbelt Fertiliser to Yara, and the acquisition of an agri-chemicals packaging business in South Africa for global market leaders, Ipackchem Group of France.
Verdant Capital achieved a top 15 ranking in the M&A league tables for Africa in 2015 published by DealMakers following their annual awards dinner in Johannesburg last week.
The historic combination of favourable macro-economic conditions for Africa began to reverse in 2013, with a weakening of most commodity prices as well as the taper tantrum in the global financial markets. Over the course of last year the decline in commodity prices has continued and even accelerated, and in December, the US Federal Reserve finally announced its first increase in interest rates for nearly a decade. Two to three years of falling commodity prices has now left governments grappling with meaningful current account and fiscal deficits. Previous economic darlings, such as Nigeria and Angola – 18 months on from […]
One of South Africa’s leading banks, FNB said the country must use its high mobile penetration to sustain financial inclusion. FNB said the country needed to take advantage of its growing mobile penetration to protect current gains and further broaden access whilst reducing the cost of enablement. FNB Life’s Chief Executive Officer, Lee Bromfield said the country needs to ensure that the current state of the economy does not derail the progress made to date. South Africa’s commitment to broadening financial inclusion focuses on enabling citizens to transact, borrow (credit), invest and insure. Insurance, especially funeral insurance has been a […]
Zagace is a custom built app store for small medium-size enterprise packages in called zag apps. The platform offers a full suite of enterprise management products from accounting, inventory, sales, manufacturing, storage, HR at a price that is affordable to African SMEs, and accessible via android. The platform, having operated to just over a year, has a customer base from a diverse range of sectors (mainly in Kenya to date) and is in the process of expanding its footprint and product offering into other African markets and already has a customer base in the US. ZAGACE is currently raising additional […]
Trials for the Fair Pay smart-card payment system are under way in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. The aim is to have 10 000 taxis converted from a cash-based transaction system to the smart-card system in 2016.
