Naspers Limited is a South African multinational internet, technology and multimedia holding company headquartered in Cape Town, with interests in online retail, publishing and venture capital investment. Naspers’ principal shareholder is its Dutch listed investment subsidiary Prosus, which owns approximately 49% of its parent as part of a cross ownership structure.
Founded in 1915 by attorney W. A. Hofmeyr, Naspers was the largest publishing company in South Africa throughout the 20th century with interests across newspapers, magazines and books. In the 1980s, the company began to diversify, launching a subscription television service and investing in markets outside of South Africa for the first time.
In 2001, Naspers made an early investment in Chinese technology firm Tencent and became increasingly focused on the global consumer internet sector. In 2019, Naspers listed its global internet investment business unit Prosus (including a 31% stake in Tencent) on Euronext Amsterdam.
Naspers currently owns a 56.92% stake in Prosus and wholly owns Media24 (Africa’s largest publishing company), Takealot.com (South Africa’s largest online retailer) and Naspers Foundry, a South African focused venture capital fund.
History
Founding and Afrikaner nationalism
In 1914, a group of prominent Cape Afrikaners decided at a meeting in Stellenbosch to form a publishing company that would support Afrikaner nationalismin the Union of South Africa. This meeting led to W. A. Hofmeyr, a well-known Cape lawyer and National Party organizer; founding De Nasionale Pers Beperkt (National Press Ltd) in 1915 as a publisher of newspapers and magazines. The firm’s name was commonly shortened to Naspers (De Nasionale Pers Beperk), the contraction eventually becoming used even by the company itself.
Naspers launched with the support of Jannie Marais, a prominent Stellenbosch farmer, Jan Christiaan Smuts, Louis Botha, and National Party founding president J.B.M. Hertzog. Naspers was strongly supportive of the National Party and began publishing the Afrikaans-language daily De Burger (later renamed Die Burger) in June 1915, followed by its first magazine, De Huisgenoot (later Die Huisgenoot) in 1916.
Domestic expansion (1917–1986)
In 1917, Naspers bought the weekly Bloemfontein-based Afrikaan newspaper Het Volksblad (now Volksblad), the first expansion beyond the Cape Province for the company. In 1925, Die Volksblad started publishing daily. In 1937, it started Die Oosterlig in the Eastern Cape. Also in 1937, Nasionale Pers set up the company Voortrekkerpers in the Transvaal to support the National Party in Transvaal by publishing Die Transvaler. Initially the Cape National Party tried to control the extremism of the National Party in the Transvaal by appointing Hendrik Verwoerd as the paper’s first editor but he would side with Transvaal branch and Nationale Pers gave up editorial control in 1939. In order to combat the influence of Albert Hertzog in the Transvaal National Party, Nationale Pers introduced a more enlightened Sunday newspaper in 1965 in the province called the Die Beeld in competition to the Dagbreek. By 1970, these two papers, the latter owned by Perskor, to merge into a paper called the Rapport managed by both groups. In 1965, Naspers launched their first English-language magazine Fairlady. In 1974, the Afrikaans newspaper Beeld began publishing daily for the Johannesburg market.
Naspers entered the South African general and educational book publishing markets in 1918, initially publishing exclusively in Afrikaans. The company expanded to English-language titles in 1919 and Xhosa in 1922. Naspers spun off its book publishing operations in 1950 into a separate business, Nasionale Boekhandel. In 1963, Naspers recommenced educational publishing operations through subsidiary Nasou.
In 1973, Naspers took back control of Nasionale Boekhandel, before acquiring another publishing house Human & Rousseau in 1977. Naspers continued to develop its book publishing business during the 1980s, forming the Afrikaans-language book club Leserskring in 1979 and the English-language book club Leisure Hour. In 1986, Naspers acquired publisher JL van Schaik.
In 1984, Naspers acquired Drum Publications, publisher of the Sunday newspaper City Press and weekly magazines Drum and True Love & Family, titles focused on a black readership.
Diversification, IPO and international expansion (1986–2003)
In 1986, Naspers formed a partnership with other South African publishing companies and launched pay-TV service M-Net. M-Net proved successful and, with sister companies MultiChoice and M-Web, steadily expanded its operations both in South Africa and internationally throughout the 1990s.
In 1994, Naspers became publicly listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in South Africa. The company also obtained a Level I American Depository Receipt listing on the London Stock Exchange. In 1998, the company formally changed its name to Naspers Limited.
Naspers became increasingly focused on digital businesses; launching South African web portal Media24 and online retailer Kalahari.com in 1998 and Chinese-focused web portal SportCN in 2000. In May 2001, Naspers purchased 46.5 percent of Chinese internet company Tencent, owner of WeChat, and an array of fintech apps and mobile games, from early investors including PCCW (the owner of Now TV) and IDG Capital. The investment has been referred to as one of the most successful venture capital deals of all time. Making Naspers the most valuable publicly traded business in Africa by 2017.
In 2003, Naspers took full ownership of subscription television business M-Net and its sister companies MultiChoice and M-Web, integrating their extensive operations across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Naspers also launched new publishing ventures in Nigeria and Hungary in 2003.
Online ventures (2003–2015)
With the success of the investment in Tencent, Naspers became an investor in a number of consumer internet startups. In January 2007 Naspers purchased a 30% share of Russia’s largest internet company VK (company) (formerly Mail.ru Group) for $165 million.
Naspers had a particular focus on India, investing more than $4 billion from 2014 to 2019,across multiple sectors, including into Byju and ibibo. In December 2018, Naspers invested $1 billion into Indian online food ordering and delivery service Swiggy, the largest single investment made, outside of China, into a food tech company.
Consolidation (2015–present)
In 2015, Naspers merged its South African–focused Kalahari.com online retail business with market leader Takealot.com, acquiring a 46% stake in the merged company and creating South Africa’s largest online retailer. By 2018, Naspers owned 96% of Takealot.com.
In December 2016, Naspers announced that it had entered into an agreement to sell telecommunications company M-Web to Internet Solutions (a subsidiary of Japanese telecommunications conglomerate Nippon Telegraph and Telephone), pending approval by the South African competition authorities.On 9 May 2017, it was announced that the South African competition authorities approved the proposed sale of M-Web, with 31 May 2017 being the effective commencement date.
In March 2018 Naspers sold part of its stake in Tencent, raising some $10 billion to fund other investments. At the time, its initial investment of $32 million in Tencent was valued at over $175 billion.
Naspers’ video entertainment business was spun off as MultiChoice Group, on 27 February 2019, represented as MCG on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Shares in Multichoice Group were unbundled to Naspers shareholders, with Naspers retaining no stake in the newly listed company.
In 2019 Naspers listed its global internet investment business on Euronext Amsterdam as Prosus, which became Europe’s largest consumer Internet company on its market debut. Share values gained over 25 percent on the day of its IPO, with Prosus’ market capitalisation exceeding 125 billion pounds (US$138 billion). Prosus reported profits of $4.2 billion for its fiscal year ending 31 March 2019.
Naspers Labs, designed in partnership with RLabs and its founder Marlon Parker,launched in 2019 as an economic initiative for unemployed youth in South Africa.
In May 2021, Naspers announced a share swap deal with its Dutch-listed subsidiary Prosus in an attempt to reduce the discount between the asset value of the companies and their market capitalisation. The deal, successfully completed in August 2021, reduced Naspers’ stake in Prosus to 56.92% and gave Prosus an approximately 49% share in its parent company.
Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Naspers (through its subsidiary Prosus) wrote off its 27.29% investment, previously valued at US$769 million, in the Russian internet company VK.
Controversies
Apartheid
Documents collected by OpenSecrets revealed how Naspers funded the National Party (NP) during apartheid, and that the NP also held 74,000 shares in Naspers in 1984.
In a letter written to F.W. de Klerk, on 17 August 1989, Naspers’ then managing director Ton Vosloo reaffirmed the company’s support of the National Party. Vosloo reminded de Klerk of its donation of R150,000 (approximately R1-million today), made to the NP before the 1987 elections. The company had then also pledged a further R220,000 in support of the NP ahead of South Africa’s last race-based general elections, in September 1989. Vosloo ended his letter, promising funding to the NP in Transvaal, by adding that “our newspaper Beeld in the Transvaal is your ally and we trust that this formidable combination will wipe out the competition.”
In 1997, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission requested that Naspers make a submission about the years between 1960 and 1994 (thus, broadly, between the Sharpeville massacre, in March 1960, and the first democratic elections of April 1994), specifically, the media’s role during this period. Naspers refused to comply, which led to 127 Naspers employees each making an individual submission to the TRC, apologising for their role in the apartheid years. They said Naspers newspapers had formed an integral part of the power structure which implemented and maintained apartheid through, for instance, supporting the NP in elections and referendums.
In 2015, Media24 CEO Esmare Weideman issued a case-limited apology cited a single employee Conrad Sidego, who had experienced problems with separate facilities. She did not issue an unqualified apology for Naspers’s role in supporting apartheid.
FirstRand Limited, also referred to as FirstRand Group is the holding company of FirstRand Bank, and is a financial services provider in South Africa. It is one of the financial services providers licensed by the Reserve Bank of South Africa, the national banking regulator.
Overview
Listed on the JSE and the Namibian Stock Exchange, FirstRand Limited is one of the largest financial institutions in South Africa, and provides banking, insurance and investment products and services to retail, commercial, corporate and public sector customers. In addition to South Africa, the group operates in eight key African countries, namely, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ghana and Nigeria. FirstRand Bank has branches in London, Guernsey and India.
FirstRand executes its strategy through a portfolio of leading financial services franchises; Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), the corporate and investment bank; First National Bank (FNB), the retail and commercial bank; WesBank, an instalment finance provider; and Ashburton Investments, the group’s asset management business.
The group has its headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa. FirstRand is one of the five largest banking groups in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.
History
The FirstRand group’s history traces back to the 1970s as an investment bank. The group as currently was established on 1 April 1998, through a merger of the financial services interests of Anglo American Corporation of South Africa Limited (now Anglo American plc) and RMB Holdings (RMBH) in order to achieve the objective of a unified financial services grouping.
These financial services interests were First National Bank Holdings, Momentum Life Assurers Limited (“Momentum” now part of MMI Holdings) and the Southern Life Association Limited (“Southern Life”) all of which were listed on the JSE. FNB and Southern Life wereconstituted as wholly owned subsidiaries of Momentum which was the vehicle to affect the merger. Momentum changed its name to FirstRand Limited and was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on 25 May 1998 with Anglo American and RMB Holdings holding 20.43% and 25.03% of the authorized capital of FirstRand respectively. Anglo American has since shed its entire shareholding.
Post merger events saw the merging of Rand Merchant Bank and FNB to form FirstRand Bank Limited, with the two units remaining to trade as divisions of FirstRand Bank Limited and the transfer of Momentum’s insurance business into that of Southern Life, to form FirstRand Insurance Limited.
FirstRand is listed as a “locally controlled bank” by the South African Reserve Bank, the national banking regulator. The group has subsidiaries in South Africa and in the countries of Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Lesotho, Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, Nigeria and the UK.
In November 2012, the Central Bank of Nigeria issued the first merchant banking licences in more than a decade to RMB Nigeria and another local firm.
Standard Bank Group Limited is a major South African bank and financial services group. It is Africa’s biggest lender by assets. The company’s corporate headquarters, Standard Bank Centre, is situated in Simmonds Street, Johannesburg.
History
The bank now known as Standard Bank was formed in 1862 as a South African subsidiary of the British overseas bank Standard Bank, under the name The Standard Bank of South Africa.
The bank’s origins can be traced to 1862, when a group of businessmen led by the prominent South African politician John Paterson formed a bank in London, initially under the name Standard Bank of British South Africa. The bank started operations in 1863 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, and soon after opening it merged with several other banks including the Commercial Bank of Port Elizabeth, the Colesberg Bank, the British Kaffrarian Bank and the Fauresmith Bank.
It was prominent in financing and development of the diamond fields of Kimberley in 1867. The word “British” was dropped from the title in 1883. When gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand, the bank expanded northwards and on 11 October 1886 the bank started doing business in a tent at Ferreira’s Camp (later to be called Johannesburg), thus becoming the first bank to open a branch on the Witwatersrand gold fields. On 1 November 1901 a second branch was opened in Eloff Street of Johannesburg.
Standard Bank in Adderley St, Cape Town
Until 1962 the British bank was formally known as the Standard Bank of South Africa, although by then its operations spread across Africa. When the South African operations were formed into a subsidiary in 1962, the parent changed its name to Standard Bank Limited, and the South African subsidiary took its parent’s previous name.
In 1967 shares in the Standard Bank of South Africa were offered to the South African public, although the British parent company retained over 80% of the shares.
The parent bank merged in 1969 with Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China and the combined bank became known as Standard Chartered Bank. In 1969 the Standard Bank Investment Corporation (now Standard Bank Group) was established as the holding company of the South African bank. During the 1970s and 1980s Standard Chartered gradually reduced its shareholding, and sold its remaining 39% stake in Standard Bank Group in 1987, transferring complete ownership of the holding company to South African investors and in particular Liberty Life (and its affiliates), with the latter being the company’s major shareholder until 1999.
In March 2019, Standard became the first bank in Africa to shift its operations onto Amazon Web Services.
In March 2019, the bank announced a reduction of 91 branches and 1200 staff. The decision was taken due to a growing use of self-service channels and a branch network becoming less relevant.
In July 2021, Standard Bank announced that it would increase its stake in Liberty Holdings, a South African insurance company, from 54% to 100%, for $594 million.
MTN Group Limited (formerly M-Cell) is a South African multinational corporation and mobile telecommunications provider. Its head office is in Johannesburg. As of December 2022 MTN recorded 289.1 million subscribers. MTN is among the largest mobile network operators in the world, and the largest in Africa.
MTN is active in over 20 countries, one-third of the company’s revenue comes from Nigeria, where it holds about 35% market share.
MTN Group is the primary sponsor of the South Africa national rugby union team and sponsors English football club Manchester United and Zambian Super League. The Nigerian subsidiary of the group also has an existing sponsorship deal with the Nigerian Football Federation.
History
The company was founded in 1994 as M-Cell with assistance from the South African government. In 1995, it replaced its then CEO, John Beck, with Robert (Bob) Chaphe. In 2001, the company reported that its controlling shareholder was Johnnic Holdings, and the chairperson was Irene Charnley. In 2002, Phuthuma Nhleko became the CEO, replacing then-CEO Paul Edwards, who had invested in expansion to Nigeria.
MTN’s competitors in South Africa include Vodacom, Cell C and Telkom Mobile.
In May 2008, Bharti Airtel, an India-based telecommunications company, explored the possibility of buying MTN Group. Reliance Communications was also in talks with MTN for a “potential combination of their businesses”. In July, the two companies ended discussions regarding the merger.
In June 2008, MTN Group agreed to purchase Verizon Business South Africa, which was a provider of data services to customers in South Africa and four other African countries. The acquisition was completed on 28 February 2009.
On 26 June 2009, MTN Group’s subsidiary merged with Belgacom International Carrier Services (BICS), a subsidiary of Belgacom. The combined subsidiary functioned as the international gateway for carrier services of MTN.
In October 2012, MTN announced a partnership with Afrihost to provide DSL Broadband services in Africa.
In November 2012, South African holding company Shanduka Group acquired a minority stake in MTN Group’s Nigeria business for $335 million.
MTN mast in Kaduna State
In 2014, MTN was named on the 2014 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brand rankings and named the Most Admired and Most Valuable Brand in Africa. MTN retained its ranking as the Most Admired and the Most Valuable African brand in 2015.
In March 2016, the company appointed Rob Shuter as chief executive officer. Shutter was replaced on 1 September 2020 when Ralph Mupita was appointed Chief Executive.
Gold Fields Limited (formerly The Gold Fields of South Africa) is one of the world’s largest gold mining firms. Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, the company is listed on both the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The firm was formed in 1998 with the amalgamation of the gold assets of Gold Fields of South Africa Limited and Gencor Limited. The company traces its roots back to 1887, when Cecil Rhodes founded Gold Fields of South Africa Limited. As of 2019, Gold Field was the world’s eighth-largest producer of gold.
The company owns and operates mines in South Africa, Ghana, Australia and Peru. Growth efforts are focused mainly in the regions where it currently operates, and are mainly driven through brownfields exploration on its existing land positions and through mergers and acquisitions in the same regions.
Gold Fields’ chairperson is Cheryl Carolus, and the CEO is Chris Griffith.
Vodacom Group Limited is a South African mobile communications company, providing voice, messaging, data and converged services to over 130 million customers across Africa. From its roots in South Africa, Vodacom has grown its operations to include networks in Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, and Lesotho, and provides business services to customers in over 32 African countries, including Nigeria, Zambia, Angola, Kenya, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon.
History
It was owned in a 50/50 partnership by the South African telecommunications giant Telkom and British multinational operator Vodafone. On 6 November 2008, Vodafone announced that it had agreed to increase its stake to 64.5%, and Telkom said that it would spin off its remaining holding by listing it on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). On 1 April 2011, Vodacom officially unveiled its new change in branding from blue to red, using the same style as its parent company, Vodafone.
Vodacom provides coverage to Mount Kilimanjaro, which was the highest point in the world to be covered by GSM, until Axiata (through its subsidiary Ncell) provided coverage at the top of Mount Everest, the highest point in the world. Vodacom was aided by its optimistic advertisements at the early stages of the democratic South Africa, including the yebo gogo campaign which is still in effect today in Africa. Vodacom is the leading cellular network in South Africa with a market share of over 40% and more than 45 million users. The company has an estimated market share of 58% and more than 103 million customers across Africa.
AngloGold Ashanti Limited is an independent and global gold mining company with a diverse high-quality portfolio of cooperation, projects and exploration activities formed in 2004 by the merger of AngloGold and the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. As of 2022, it was a global gold producer with 21 operations on four continents, listed on the New York, Johannesburg, Accra, London and Australian stock exchanges, as well as the Paris and Brussels bourses, but left the Johannesburg exchange in 2023. As of May 2023, it was the world’s fourth-largest gold miner with assets in Ghana, Australia, the US and Argentina.
In 2019, the company was claimed to be the ‘most sophisticated and technologically advanced’ mining operations with strict adherence to safety regulations.
AngloGold Ashanti has a history of gross human rights violations and causing grave environmental problems for which it won one of the Public Eye Awards.
History
AngloGold Ashanti was formed on 26 April 2004, after the High Court of Ghana approved the merger of AngloGold and the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation three days earlier. AngloGold had been a gold mining company based in South Africa, majority-owned by the Anglo American group. This came almost a year after the merger was announced on 16 May 2003. In the transaction, Ashanti shareholders received 0.29 ordinary shares of AngloGold for every Ashanti share.
The new company sold its Union Reef Gold Mine in the Northern Territory of Australia in August 2004, followed by the sale of the Freda-Rebecca Gold Mine in Zimbabwe a month later.
In late 2007, Mark Cutifani replaced Bobby Godsell as CEO of AngloGold Ashanti, being appointed a director of the company on 17 September 2007 and as CEO on 1 October that year.
Alberto Calderon, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of AngloGold Ashanti. Appointed on ( September 1 2021-)
In 2008, AngloGold produced 4.98 million ounces of gold from its operations, estimated to be seven percent of the global production. In 2009, the company’s gold output dropped to 4.6 million ounces.
As of early 2008, the company had hedged 11.3 million ounces of gold, under previous CEO Bobby Godsell.
In January 2009, AngloGold Ashanti sold its 33% stake in the Boddington Gold Mine in Australia to Newmont Mining for US$1.0 billion.
In February 2009, the company’s Tau Lekoa Gold Mine in South Africa was sold to Buffelsfontein Gold Mines Limited with ownership being transferred on 1 August 2010.
In May 2010, Russell Edey, chairman of AngloGold since 2002 and, after the merger also of AngloGold Ashanti, was replaced by Tito Mboweni.
In October 2010, the company announced the elimination of the last of its hedge book. Under its new CEO, it gradually reduced the hedge to 3.22 million. In October 2010, this remaining amount was paid off with US$2.63 billion, or US$1,300 per ounce of gold.
In 2011, AngloGold Ashanti moved into Eritrea to explore the Arabian-Nubian Shield for gold through a 50/50 joint venture set up in 2009 with Thani Dubai Mining.
As of the third quarter of 2014, Anglogold was the world’s third-largest producer of gold, behind Barrick Gold and Newmont Mining.
As of 2019, the company was claimed to be the ‘most sophisticated and technologically advanced’ mining operations with strict adherence to safety regulations.
In 2020, it sold its last South African mining assets to Harmony Gold for about R4.4 billion. It no longer has any operations left in South Africa but remains listed on the JSE.
On 1 September 2020, Chief Financial Officer Christine Ramon became interim CEO following the resignation of Kelvin Dushnisky. There has been speculation that Dushnisky stepped down after shareholders questioned a bonus payment he received from his prior employer Barrick Gold while also taking a signing bonus from AngloGold Ashanti when he was appointed CEO in 2018.
As of May 2023, AngloGold Ashanti was the world’s fourth-largest gold miner with assets in Ghana, Australia, the US and Argentina.
AngloGold Ashanti is a signatory participant of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights.
The Dangote Group is a Nigerian multinational industrial conglomerate, founded by Aliko Dangote. It is the largest conglomerate in West Africa and one of the largest on the African continent. The group employs more than 30,000 people, generating revenue in excess of US$4.1 billion in 2017.
History
The company was founded in 1981 as a trading enterprise, importing sugar, cement, rice, fisheries, and other consumer goods for distribution in the Nigeria market. The group moved into manufacturing in the 1990s, starting with textiles, moving onto flour milling, salt processing and sugar refining by the end of the decade. The company next moved into cement production, growing rapidly and moving into other African countries. A high degree of vertical integration is a hallmark of Dangote Group’s operating strategy.
The group now owns and operates over 18 subsidiaries, operating in ten African countries. Dangote Cement, is one of these subsidiaries that is listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, with its market capitalization accounting for almost 20 percent of the total capitalization of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Dangote Group is headquartered in Lagos.
In 2016, Dangote signed a contract with CNOOC Group for the installation of a large underwater offshore pipeline. The pipeline, when completed, will extend from Bonny (Rivers State) through Ogedegbe, Olokola to Lekki and the Escravos Lagos pipeline, finally terminating at the West Africa Gas Pipeline.
Overview
Dangote Group was created in the late 1970s, when Aliko Dangote established a venture that traded sugar and other consumer goods, which was funded by a $3,000 loan from his grandfather. Later, the group would gradually expand into trading other commodities, such as rice. In 1981, he established two business enterprises, Dangote Nigeria Limited, and Blue Star Services, this was a period when import licenses were required to import bulk commodities, the firm then sought to acquire import licenses for various commodities including steel, baby food, and aluminium products. He then added the shipping and the importing of cement to his group’s portfolio. Dangote competed (and competes) with Lafarge, a French company that imported and produced the bulk of African cement.
When the import license era was discontinued in 1986, the firm concentrated in bulk importing of salt, sugar, and rice and gradually reduced its cement business.
Manufacturing
The group’s first foray into manufacturing began in 1989 with textiles Mills Limited, operating two operations, a textile weaving mill in Kano and the Nigerian Textile Mills limited’s plant in Lagos. Beginning in 1997, following a decline of the textile sector, the company concentrated on manufacturing consumer goods it was importing into Nigeria such as sugar refining and flour milling, with the former it competed against imported products from Brazil and Europe. One of the biggest distributors of sugar in Nigeria, Dangote sugar refinery began local production in 1999. The strategy towards backward integration led to the establishment of a pasta plant and also flour milling to supply raw materials for making pasta. The company then invested in a cement manufacturing venture at Obajana, Kogi State, with an aggressive strategy, the Obajana plant began production with 5 million tonnes of cement, the group then invested funds in another cement operation at Ibeshe, Ogun State to shore up the local manufacturing sector from about 2.5 million tonnes to up to 8 million tonnes. To reduce economic and political risk within the country, the group began looking for opportunities to expand beyond Nigeria. The company’s strategy then focused on continental expansion with the building and acquisition of cement plants in African countries.
Today, Dangote Group is a diversified conglomerate, headquartered in Lagos, with interests across a range of sectors in Africa. Current interests include cement, sugar, flour, salt, seasoning, pasta, beverages and real estate, with new projects in development in oil and natural gas, telecommunications, fertilizer and steel. Competitors in both Nigeria and other portions of Africa include Stallion Group.
Subsidiary companies
Entrance of Dangote Cement head office in Douala, Cameroon
Dangote Cement, the largest cement production company in Africa, with a market capitalization of almost US$14 billion on the Nigeria Stock Exchange, has subsidiaries in Benin, Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia. In December 2010, the group signed an agreement with the Government of Zambia to construct a US$400 million cement plant in Zambia. It was completed in 2015 and is located in Ndola, The plant produces 42.5-grade cement to compete against the lower-grade but dominant 32.5 products in the market, the new plant is expected to have an annual output of 1.5 million metric tonnes of cement.
Dangote Sugar is another major subsidiary of Dangote, competing with Bua Refinery Ltd. and Golden Sugar Co. Dangote Sugar is the largest sugar refining company in sub-Saharan Africa.
Petrochemicals
The group has also diversified into oil and gas-related ventures, establishing a 3 million tonnes fertilizer plant, petroleum refinery capable of refining 650,000 barrels of oil and a petrochemical operation. Dangote Refinery was inaugurated in May 2023, and is the largest refinery in Africa at full capacity.
Capitec Bank is a South African retail bank. As of August 2017 the bank was the second largest retail bank in South Africa, based on number of customers, with 120,000 customers opening new accounts per month.
Overview
The bank maintains 850 retail branches nationwide,3418 own or partnership ATMs and has over 6.2 million customers, according to the 2015 Chief Financial Officer’s Report. Of these customers, 309 000 are online banking customers and 3.5 million are mobile banking customers.
According to the annual results for the 2015 financial year, the asset base of Capitec Bank was in excess of R53.9 billion, with R11.6 billion in equity, and with retail savings deposits increasing by 32 percent for the year to R19.3 billion and retail fixed savings increasing by 19 percent to R10.7 billion for the year. Earnings and headline earnings for the 2015 financial year amounted to R2.547 billion compared to R2.017 billion in 2014, and net transaction fee income amounted to R2.6 billion.
The bank offers its clients the Global One account, which is a transacting/savings account and credit facility rolled into one.
When it comes to customer satisfaction as per the results by South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi) in 2015, Capitec Bank comes first with 82.2 points. Capitec Bank has emerged as the best bank in the world by International banking advisory group Lafferty in its inaugural Bank Quality Rankings.
As of February 2017 “the majority, more than 5.5 million, of Capitec clients pay[ed] less than R50 per month in bank costs.”
Business model
The bank operates as a retail bank that serves both individuals and businesses, but does not provide business banking for close corporations, companies, partnerships or trusts. It claims to focus on simplifying the banking experience, according to their literature.
Capitec’s business model is focused on providing a value to its customer(s) by providing low costs, giving customers the freedom to pay as they transact, and by offering the highest interest rate on deposits.
Sasol Limited is an integrated energy and chemical company based in Sandton, South Africa. The company was formed in 1950 in Sasolburg, South Africa, and built on processes that German chemists and engineers first developed in the early 1900s (see coal liquefaction). Today, Sasol develops and commercializes technologies, including synthetic fuel technologies, and produces different liquid fuels, chemicals, coal tar, and electricity.
Sasol headquarters in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa
Sasol is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE: SOL) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: SSL). Major shareholders include the South African Government Employees Pension Fund, Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa Limited (IDC), Allan Gray Investment Counsel,[ Coronation Fund Managers, Ninety One, and others. Sasol employs 30,100 people worldwide and has operations in 33 countries. It is the largest corporate taxpayer in South Africa and the seventh-largest coal mining company in the world.
History
South Africa has large deposits of coal, which had low commercial value due to its high fly ash content. If this coal could be used to produce synthetic oil, petrol, and diesel fuel, it perhaps would have significant benefit to South Africa. In the 1920s, South African scientists started looking at the possibility of using coal as a source of liquid fuels. This work was pioneered by P. N. Lategan, working for the Transvaal Coal Owners Association. He completed his doctoral thesis from the Imperial College of Science in London on The Low-Temperature Carbonisation of South African Coal. In 1927, a white paper from the government was issued describing various oil-from-coal processes being used overseas and their potential for South Africa. In the 1930s, a young scientist named Etienne Rousseau obtained a Master of Science from the University of Stellenbosch. His thesis was entitled “The Sulfur Content of Coals and Oil Shales”. Rousseau became Sasol’s first managing director. After World War II, Anglovaal bought the rights to a method of using the Fischer–Tropsch process patented by M. W. Kellogg Limited, and in 1950, Sasol was formally incorporated as the South African Coal, Oil, and Gas Corporation (from the Afrikaans of which the present name is derived: Suid-Afrikaanse Steenkool-, Olie- en Gas Maatskappy), a state-owned company. Commissioning of the Sasol 1 site for the production of synfuels started in 1954. Construction of the Sasol 2 site was completed in 1980, with the Sasol 3 site coming on stream in 1982. The Zevenfontein farm house served as Sasol’s first offices and is still in existence today.
Coal mining
To support the required economies of scale for coal-to-liquids (CTL) process to be economical and competitive with crude oil, all stages of the operations, from coal mining to the Fischer–Tropsch process and product work up must be run with great efficiency. Due to the complexity of the Lurgi gasifers used, the quality of the coal was paramount. The initial annual output from the Sigma underground mine in Sasolburg was two million tons. Annual coal production from this mine peaked in 1991 at 7.4 million tons. Today, most of the gasifiers in Sasolburg have been replaced with autothermal reformers that feed natural gas piped from Mozambique. Natural gas generates about 40–60% less carbon dioxide for the same energy produced as coal, thus is significantly more environmentally friendly. Gas-to-liquids technology converts natural gas, predominantly methane to liquid fuels. Today, Sasol mines more than 40 million tons (Mt) of saleable coal a year, mostly gasification feedstock for Sasol Synfuels in Secunda. Sasol Mining also exports some 2.8 Mt of coal a year. This amounts to roughly 22% of all the coal mined in South Africa. Underground mining operations continue in the Secunda area (Bosjesspruit, Brandspruit, Middelbult, Syferfontein, and Twistdraai collieries) and Sigma: Mooikraal colliery near Sasolburg. As some of these mines are nearing the end of their useful lives, a R14bn mine replacement program has been undertaken. The first of the new mines is the R3.4bn Thubelisha shaft, which will eventually be an operation delivering more than 8M tons/annum (mtpa) of coal over 25 years. The Impumelelo mine, which will replace the Brandspruit operation, is set for first production in 2015. It will be ramped up to produce 8.5 mtpa, and can later be upgraded to supplying some 10.5 mtpa. This coal will be used exclusively by the Sasol Synfuels plant. An underground extension of the Middelbult mine is also on the cards, with the main shaft and incline shaft being replaced by the Shondoni shaft. The first coal from the new complex was expected to be delivered in 2015.
The Secunda collieries form the world’s largest underground coal operations.
In conjunction with the continuous improvement in the Fischer–Tropsch process and catalyst, significant developments were also made in mining technology. Coal mining at Sasol from the early days has been characterised by innovation. Sasol Mining mainly uses the room and pillar method of mining with a continuous miner. Sasol successfully used the longwall mining method from 1967 to 1987. Today, Sasol is one of the leaders in coal-mining technology and was the first to develop in-seam drilling from the surface using a directional drilling methodology. This has been developed into an effective exploration tool. Working with Fifth Dimension, Sasol developed a virtual reality technology to help train continuous miner operators in a 3D environment in which various scenarios can be simulated, including sound, dust and other signs of movement. This has recently been expanded to include shuttle car, roof-bolting, and load-haul dumper simulators.
Fischer–Tropsch reactor technology
The initial reactors from Kellogg and Lurgi gasifiers were tricky and expensive to operate. The original reactor design in 1955 was a circulating fluidised bed reactor (CFBR) with a capacity of about 1,500 barrels per day. Sasol improved these reactors to eventually yield about 6,500 barrels per day. The CFBR design involves moving the whole catalyst bed around the reactor, which is energy intensive and not efficient as most of the catalyst is not in the reaction zone. Sasol then developed fixed fluidized bed (FFB) reactors in which the catalyst particles were held in a fixed reaction zone. This resulted in a significant increase in reactor capacities. For example, the first FFB reactors commercialised in 1990 (5 m diameter) had a capacity of about 3,000 barrels per day, while the design in 2000 (10.7 m diameter) had a capacity of 20,000 barrels per day. Further advancements in reactor engineering have resulted on the development and commercialisation of Sasol Slurry Phase Distillate (SSPD) reactors which are the cornerstone of Sasol’s first-of-a-kind GTL plant in Qatar.
From fuels to chemicals
The fuel price is directly linked to the oil price, so is subject to potentially large fluctuations. With Sasol only producing fuels, this meant that its profitability was largely governed by external macroeconomic forces over which it had no control. How could Sasol be less susceptible to the oil price? The answer was right in front of them, in the treasure chest of chemicals co-produced in the Fischer–Tropsch process. Chemicals have a higher value per ton of product than fuels.
In the 1960s ammonia, styrene, and butadiene became the first chemical intermediates sold by Sasol. The ammonia was then used to make fertilizers. By 1964, Sasol was a major player in the nitrogenous fertilizer market. This product range was further extended in the 1980s to include both phosphate- and potassium-based fertilizers. Sasol now sells an extensive range of fertilizers and explosives to local and international markets, and is a world leader in its low-density ammonium nitrate technology.
With the extraction of chemicals from its Fischer–Tropsch product slate coupled with downstream functionalization and on-purpose chemical production facilities, Sasol moved from being just a South African fuels company to become an international integrated energy and chemicals company with over 200 chemical products being sold worldwide. Some of the main products produced are diesel, petrol (gasoline), naphtha, kerosene (jet fuel), liquid petroleum gas (LPG), olefins, alcohols, polymers, solvents, surfactants (detergent alcohols and oil-field chemicals), co-monomers, ammonia, methanol, various phenolics, sulphur, illuminating paraffin, bitumen, acrylates, and fuel oil. These products are used in the production process of numerous everyday products made worldwide and benefit the lives of millions of people around the world. They include hot-melt adhesives, car products, microchip coatings, printing ink, household and industrial paints, mobile phones, circuit boards, transport fuels, compact discs, medical lasers, sun creams, perfumes and plastic bottles.
In South Africa, the chemical businesses are integrated in the Fischer–Tropsch value chain. Outside South Africa, the company operates chemical businesses based on backward integration into feedstock and/or competitive market positions for example in Europe, Asia, and the United States.
Bidcorp is an international broad-line foodservice group, listed on the JSE, South Africa, and present in developed and developing economies in five continents. Focused on foodservice, the business comprises a mix of well-established leading and rapidly growing market positions, offering significant future upside.
United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) is a Multinational pan-African financial services group headquartered in Lagos Island, Lagos and known as Africa’s Global Bank. It has subsidiaries in 20 African countries and offices in London, Paris and New York. In December 2021, UBA received its banking license to commence operations in the UAE. It is listed as commercial bank by the Central Bank of Nigeria. The shares of stock of the group are listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, where they trade under the symbol: UBA. The Group Chairman of the bank is Tony Elumelu and the GMD/CEO is Oliver Alawuba.
Overview
United Bank For Africa is a large financial services group in Nigeria and on the African continent. As of December 2021, the group’s financial assets were valued at ₦8.5 trillion (US$20.1 billion), with shareholders’ equity of ₦724.1 billion (US$1.8 billion). At that time the group employed 20,000+ people. The group maintains subsidiaries in Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad, Cameroon, Kenya, Gabon, Tanzania, Zambia, Uganda, Liberia, Sierra-Leone, Mozambique, Senegal, DR Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Mali, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, France, and UAE.
History
The British and French Bank Limited (BFB) commenced business in Nigeria in 1948. BFB was a subsidiary of Banque nationale pour le commerce et l’industrie (BNCI) in Paris, which transformed its London branch into BFB as a separate subsidiary. Banque Nationale de Credit and two British investment firms, S.G. Warburg and Company and Robert Benson and Company, held shares in BFB.
Following Nigeria’s independence from Britain, UBA was incorporated on 23rd, February 1961 to take over the business of BFB.
In 1970, UBA listed its shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and became the first Nigerian Bank to undertake an Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Today’s UBA emerged from the merger of the dynamic and fast-growing Standard Trust Bank, incorporated in 1990, and UBA, one of the biggest and oldest banks in Nigeria. The merger was consummated on August 1, 2005, and was one of the largest mergers completed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
Following the merger, UBA further expanded its brand through acquiring Continental Trust Bank that same year. In 2006, UBA acquired Trade Bank, which was under liquidation by the Central Bank of Nigeria at the time.
UBA had another successful combined public offering rights issue in 2007 and made further acquisitions of three liquidated banks: City Express Bank, Metropolitan Bank, and African Express Bank. UBA also acquired Afrinvest UK, rebranding it UBA Capital, UK. The quest to build a strong domestic and African brand intensified in 2008 when UBA made further acquisitions of two liquidated banks: Gulf Bank and Liberty Bank.
UBA has a broad footprint across Africa and the world. It maintains subsidiaries in the following countries*, listed in the order of their commencement of banking operations:
Nestlé S.A. is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It has been the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since 2014. It ranked No. 64 on the Fortune Global 500 in 2017 and No. 33 in the 2016 edition of the Forbes Global 2000 list of the largest public companies.
Nestlé’s products include baby food (some including human milk oligosaccharides), medical food, bottled water, breakfast cereals, coffee and tea, confectionery, dairy products, ice cream, frozen food, pet foods, and snacks. Twenty-nine of Nestlé’s brands have annual sales of over 1 billion CHF (about US$1.1 billion), including Nespresso, Nescafé, Kit Kat, Smarties, Nesquik, Stouffer’s, Vittel, and Maggi. Nestlé has 447 factories, operates in 189 countries, and employs around 339,000 people. It is one of the main shareholders of L’Oreal, the world’s largest cosmetics company.
Nestlé was formed in 1905 by the merger of the “Anglo-Swiss Milk Company”, which was established in 1866 by brothers George and Charles Page, and “Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé” founded in 1867 by Henri Nestlé. The company grew significantly during World War I and again following World War II, expanding its offerings beyond its early condensed milk and infant formula products. The company has made a number of corporate acquisitions including Crosse & Blackwell in 1960, Findus in 1963, Libby’s in 1971, Rowntree Mackintosh in 1988, Klim in 1998, and Gerber in 2007.
The company has been associated with various controversies, facing criticism and boycotts over its marketing of baby formula as an alternative to breastfeeding in developing countries (where clean water may be scarce), its reliance on child labour in cocoa production, and its production and promotion of bottled water.
Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine the company continued doing business in Russia. In November 2023 for this reason Ukraine listed Nestlé as an International Sponsors of War.
ExxonMobil Corporation commonly shortened to Exxon is an American multinational oil and gas corporation and the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. The company, which took its present name in 1999 per the merger of Exxon and Mobil, is vertically integrated across the entire oil and gas industry, and within it is also a chemicals division which produces plastic, synthetic rubber, and other chemical products. ExxonMobil is headquartered near the Houston suburb of Spring, Texas, though officially incorporated in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
The company’s history traces its earliest roots to 1866, with the formation of the Vacuum Oil Company, itself acquired by Standard Oil in 1879. The company that is today known as ExxonMobil grew out of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (or Jersey Standard for short), the corporate entity which effectively controlled all of Standard Oil prior to its breakup. Jersey Standard grew alongside and with extensive partnership another Standard Oil descendant and its future merger partner, the Standard Oil Company of New York (Socony), both of which grew bigger by merging with various third companies like Humble Oil (which merged with Jersey Standard) and Vacuum Oil (merged with Socony). Both companies underwent rebranding in the 1960s and early 1970s, and by the time of the 1999 merger, Jersey Standard had been known as Exxon, and Socony known as Mobil. The merger agreement between Exxon and Mobil stipulated that Exxon would buy Mobil and rebrand as ExxonMobil, with Mobil’s CEO becoming the vice-chairman of the company.
ExxonMobil is one of the world’s largest and most powerful companies. Since its merger, the company has varied from the first to tenth largest publicly traded company by revenue, and has one of the largest market capitalizations out of any company. As of 2023, in the most recent rankings released in the Fortune 500, ExxonMobil was ranked third, and twelfth on the Fortune Global 500. It is the largest investor-owned oil company in the world, the largest oil company headquartered in the Western world, and the largest of the Big Oil companies in both production and market value. Its reserves were 20 billion BOE at the end of 2016 and the 2007 rates of production were expected to last more than 14 years. With 21 oil refineries constituting a combined daily refining capacity of 4.9 million barrels (780,000 m3), ExxonMobil is the second largest oil refiner in the world, trailing only Sinopec. Approximately 55.56% of the company’s shares are held by institutions, the largest of which as of 2019 were The Vanguard Group (8.15%), BlackRock (6.61%), and State Street Corporation (4.83%).
ExxonMobil has been widely criticized, mostly for environmental incidents and its history of climate change denial against the scientific consensus that fossil fuels significantly contribute to global warming. The company is responsible for many oil spills, the largest and most notable of which was the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and itself considered to be one of the world’s worst oil spills in terms of damage to the environment. The company has also been the target of accusations of human rights violations, excessive influence on America’s foreign policy, and its impact on various societies across the world.
TotalEnergies SE is a French multinational integrated energy and petroleum company founded in 1924 and is one of the seven supermajor oil companies. Its businesses cover the entire oil and gas chain, from crude oil and natural gas exploration and production to power generation, transportation, refining, petroleum product marketing, and international crude oil and product trading. TotalEnergies is also a large-scale chemicals manufacturer.
TotalEnergies has its head office in the Tour Total in La Défense district in Courbevoie, west of Paris. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. In the 2023 Forbes Global 2000, TotalEnergies was ranked as the 21st largest public company in the world.
History
The company was founded after World War I, when petrol was seen as vital in case of a new war with Germany. The then-French President Raymond Poincaré rejected the idea of forming a partnership with Royal Dutch Shell in favour of creating an entirely French oil company. At Poincaré’s behest, Col. Ernest Mercier, with the support of 90 banks and companies, founded Total in 1924, as the Compagnie française des pétroles (CFP) (in English, the French Petroleum Company).
As per the agreement reached during the San Remo conference of 1920, the French state received the 25% share held by Deutsche Bank in the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) as part of the compensation for war damages caused by Germany during World War I. The French government’s stake in TPC was transferred to CFP, and the Red Line agreement in 1928 rearranged the shareholding of CFP in TPC (later renamed the Iraq Petroleum Company in 1929) to 23.75%. The company from the start was regarded as a private sector company in view of its listing on the Paris Stock Exchange in 1929.
During the 1930s, the company was engaged in exploration and production, primarily from the Middle East. Its first refinery began operating in Normandy in 1933. After World War II, CFP engaged in oil exploration in Venezuela, Canada, and Africa while pursuing energy sources within France. Exploration in Algeria, then a French colony, began in 1946, with Algeria becoming a leading source of oil in the 1950s.
In 1954, CFP introduced its downstream product – Total brand of gasoline in Africa and Europe.
Total entered the United States in 1971 by acquiring Leonard Petroleum of Alma, Michigan and several Standard Oil of Indiana stations in Metro Detroit.
In 1980, Total Petroleum (North America) Ltd., a company controlled 50% by CFP, bought the American refining and marketing assets of Vickers Petroleum as part of a sell-off by Esmark of its energy holdings. This purchase gave Total refining capacity, transportation, and a network of 350 service stations in 20 states.
Nigerian Breweries Plc, is the largest brewing company in Nigeria. It serves the Nigerian market and West Africa.
History
The idea to establish a brewery in Lagos was first promoted by Frank Samuel of UAC before World War II. But it was not until the war ended that concrete steps were taken to kick-start such a project. Market leaders in the sector were all imported brands without a locally produced beer. UAC did not have a technical history in beer-making, leading the firm to enter into a technical agreement with Heineken and investments from other merchandise companies in Nigeria, including John Holt, GBO, SCOA, CFAO and UTC who all took some equity interest in the new company. Nigerian Breweries was incorporated in 1946.
Construction of the brewery began at Iganmu, Lagos, in 1947 and was completed in 1949. The first bottle of its brand, the STAR Lager, rolled off the bottling lines of its Lagos brewery in June 1949. NBL utilized consumer market research to understand the demands of the market and developed a marketing strategy around STAR Lager that used advertisements to show a link between drinking beer and modernity. It was one of the early companies to use sophisticated market research skills and to advertise a Nigerian brand heavily.
Development
Star attained market leadership in 1960, which created a need to build more factories in Nigeria. To get products to consumers, the company gave rights to sell its brand to select distributors and built depots at strategic locations within the country. As the company expanded into other regions, it established more breweries, such as Aba Brewery in 1957 and Kaduna Brewery in 1963. By 1971, the company was one of the largest industries in the country in terms of capital investment. In 1982, another brewery was added in Ibadan. In September 1993, the company acquired its fifth brewery in Enugu, and in October 2003, its sixth brewery, sited at Ameke in Enugu. Ama Brewery began brewing on 22 March 2003 and, at 3 million hectolitres, is the largest brewery in Nigeria.
In addition, NBL introduced assorted non-alcoholic mineral and flavored drinks under the Rainbow brand, including Krola, Tip Top Tonic Water, and Sundowner soda water. It also introduced Gulder into the market and acquired rights to market Schweppes bitter lemon in the country. In 1972, it sold its non-alcoholic drink franchise.
In the 1980s, NBL gradually increased its market share in the alcoholic beverage market at the expense of smaller breweries. In 1988, NBL facilities had to undergo a conversion process when the government banned barley imports. The firm employed Heineken’s technical assistance with the conversion process and also established a grain farm in Niger State to supply locally produced grains for the breweries.
21st century
In 2010, NB Plc acquired beer factories from Sona Group, makers of maltonic malt drink and franchise owners of Goldberg beer. The factories included Sona Breweries at Ota and Kaduna and Life Breweries at Onitsha. In 2014, the firm merged with Consolidated Breweries, producers of 33 export and Williams Dark Ale, a merger led by the company’s leading shareholder Heineken.
In December 2018, a Nigerian court ruled that Nigerian Breweries misled its consumers by selling Amstel Malt as a low-sugar product, which was an inaccurate statement. In March 2019, a Nigerian Federal High Court dismissed Nigerian Breweries’ suit against the National Lottery Regulatory Commission (filed in 2018) which asked the Court to look into the authority of the Lottery Commission regarding sales promotion to consumers. The Lottery Commission had nailed Nigerian Breweries for running illegal lottery operations as part of a marketing promotion.
In December 2020, Nigerian Breweries launched the tequila-flavored beer Desperados. In August 2021, Hans Essaadi became the new CEO of Nigerian Breweries.
Unilever Nigeria Plc is a publicly listed company with trading and manufacturing interest in the consumer goods market. In 2014, it was listed among the top 20 most valuable companies quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Unilever Nigeria PLC is a subsidiary of Unilever Overseas Holding B.V.
History
Lever Brothers
Unilever history in Nigeria dates back to 1923 when Robert Hesketh Leverhulme opened a trading post in Nigeria under the business name, Lever Brothers (West Africa) Ltd. The firm was primarily engaged in trading of soap and in 1924, the name was changed to West African Soap Company. Sensing opportunity in the country, the firm opened a soap factory in Apapa in 1925. The company later expanded into the production of food products, it opened a new soap factory in Aba in 1958 and changed its name to Lever Brothers Nigeria Limited in 1955. In 1960, Lever Brothers introduced Omo detergent into the market, the new product gained traction among buyers, prompting the firm to commission a factory to manufacture Omo detergents in 1964.
In compliance with the indigenisation decree of 1972, Unilever became a publicly listed company in 1973, selling 60% of its shares to the Nigerian public. The company became a Nigerian owned firm. The change in equity ownership did not affect the firm’s growth. In 1982, the firm began producing edible products such as Royco, Blue band and Tree top in Agbara, Ogun State.
In addition, the company went through a period of mergers and acquisition; acquiring Lipton Nigeria in 1985 and later merging with Vaseline manufacturer, Chesebrough Products Industries in 1988. During this period, the company embarked on a backward integration scheme in order to source its raw materials locally. This business decision led the company to invest in crop production and oil palm milling. The company also invested in a tea plantation in Mambilla to provide raw materials for Lipton.
Unilever
In 1995, Lever Brothers, 40% owned by Unilever merged with Unilever Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of the Unilever U.K. The merger gave Unilever control of the newly merged entity, this was the first time since the indigenisation decree was scrapped that a multinational will have majority equity in a quoted Nigerian company. Prior to the merger, in 1994, Unilever group acquired A.J. Seward, a personal care products manufacturer from UAC Nigeria.
In 2001, the company changed its name to Unilever Nigeria Plc.
First Bank of Nigeria Limited is a multinational bank and financial services company in Lagos, Nigeria. First Bank is owned by FBN Holdings PLC, which in itself has diversified ownership with over 1.3 million shareholders.
Overview
The First Bank Group offers over 700 business locations across Africa and has an agent Banking network with over 200,000 locations across Nigeria. The bank specializes in retail banking, with a client base in West Africa of over 18 million customers.
First Bank, as a group, employs over 16,000 staff. It operates four key strategic business units: retail banking, corporate banking, commercial banking, and public sector banking.
As of December 2019, bank had assets worth NGN5.9 trillion. The bank’s profit before tax for the twelve months ending December 31, 2019 was approximately NGN70.8 billion.
For the half-year ending June 30, 2022, FBN Holdings reported that its profit before tax rose by 45 percent compared to the same period a year earlier.
Paystack is a Nigerian financial technology company that offers payment processing services to businesses and was acquired by Irish-American financial services company Stripe for $200M in 2020. Its headquarters is located in Lagos, Nigeria.
History
Paystack was founded in 2015 by Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi who met at Babcock University and worked in banking and IT before founding Paystack. In November 2015, it became the first Nigerian company to be accepted into the startup accelerator Y Combinator. It expanded to Ghana in 2018, South Africa in 2021 and Kenya in 2023
Guinness Nigeria, a Nigerian-based subsidiary of Diageo Plc of the United Kingdom, was incorporated in 1962 with the building of a brewery in Ikeja. The brewery was the first Guinness operation outside Ireland and Great Britain. Other breweries have been opened over time: Ogba brewery in 1963 and Benin City brewery in 1973.
History
Guinness product was sold in Nigeria in the 1940s and 1950s by United Africa Company (UAC) and the country soon became an important export market for the firm. In 1961, plans came into fruition between Arthur Guinness Son and Co and UAC to establish a brewery at Ikeja, Lagos. Arthur Guinness first factory outside Ireland and the UK was built by Taylor Woodrow. The initial plant had the annual capacity to brew 75 million bottles or 150,000 barrels of beer. The plant area had a 15 million capacity bottle bin and office block designed by the firm of Godwin and Hopwood.
Deloitte Africa is a member of the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), a UK private company limited by guarantee. As one of the most iconic brands in Africa, Deloitte has a proud history of attracting top talent and delivering value to clients. Over the course of more than 175 years, Deloitte has helped forge ecosystems that deliver breakthrough solutions that help our clients succeed in an era of complexity and disruption.
Julius Berger is a Nigerian construction company, headquartered in Abuja, with additional permanent locations in Lagos and Uyo.
Julius Berger Nigeria Plc is a Nigerian company offering holistic services covering the planning, design, engineering, construction, operation and maintenance of buildings, infrastructure and industry projects in Nigeria.
The company is represented across Nigeria in structural engineering and infrastructure works, and in southern Nigeria through domestic and international oil and gas industry projects. It is known for constructing most of Nigeria’s infrastructure, major expressways, and even some residential buildings for the Chevron Nigeria headquarters in Lagos.
The company has been listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange since 1991. The construction business of Julius Berger is the heart of the Julius Berger Group. With 18,000 employees from close to 40 nations and clients from both Nigeria and the global oil and gas industry.
History
Julius Berger’s presence in Nigeria dates back to 1965 when the firm won a tender to construct a ₦31.2 million second mainland bridge In Lagos. The project was a significant civil engineering endeavor because it was the first in the country to be built with pre-stressed concrete. The construction of the bridge was designed in phases with the first phase completed in 1969 and last phase completed in 1974. While working on the project, Berger undertook other projects in the country, municipal water works project in Jos awarded by the government of Benue-Plateau State was the firm’s first construction project outside of Lagos State. This project involved building a reservoir to conserve rain water and building a dam, water treatment plant and tanks. The firm’s efficiency in building the first phase of Eko bridge made it a top choice to repair the bridge over River Niger which had been damaged during the civil war. This project kept the company busy in Nigeria.
When the war ended, vehicular and shipping traffic in Lagos increased and additional road infrastructure such as Eko bridge did little to ease traffic congestion. To ease traffic congestion, the government awarded Berger additional road construction contracts, the projects and the Niger bridge made viable a permanent establishment in the country. The Lagos State projects included the construction of the Lagos – Badagry expressway, Itoikin-Ikorudu-Epe single carriageway, and ring roads and Apapa – Oshodi and Agege Motor Road. Gradually the firm and its blue B logo established a reputation in civil engineering works within the country, this coincided with a period that the federal government focused its attention on developing the country’s Trunk A road system. The firm was involved in constructing the 26-mile Lagos to Shagamu portion of Lagos to Ibadan expressway and Jebba road bridge.
Julius Berger was registered in Nigeria prior to building the Jos water works, in 1974. It sold 40% of its equity to Lagos and Benue-Plateau State governments and three years later sold an additional 20% to the public. After a cement armada caused chaos at Apapa port, the company was invited to build a new port at Tin Can Island. In the 1970s and early 1980s, it was involved in the civil works at Aladja and Ajaokuta Steel complexes and the new federal capital territory, Abuja.
British American Tobacco plc (BAT) is a British multinational company that manufactures and sells cigarettes, tobacco and other nicotine products. The company, established in 1902, is headquartered in London, England. As of 2021, it is the largest tobacco company in the world based on net sales.
BAT has operations in around 180 countries, and its cigarette brands include Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall and Rothmans. Its brands also include Velo, Vuse and Glo.
BAT has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It has a secondary listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. BAT plc ordinary shares are also listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American Depositary Shares.
The company was formed in 1902, when the United Kingdom’s Imperial Tobacco Company and the United States’ American Tobacco Company agreed to form a joint venture, the “British-American Tobacco Company Ltd.” The parent companies agreed not to trade in each other’s domestic territory and to assign trademarks, export businesses and overseas subsidiaries to the joint venture. James Buchanan Duke became company chairman supported by Hugo Cunliffe-Owen (later Chairman) and Albert Jeffress (later Deputy Chairman); then business was begun in countries as diverse as Canada, China, Germany, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, but not in the United Kingdom or in the United States.
In China, BAT inherited a factory in the Pudong district of Shanghai from W.D. & H.O. Wills, one of the precursor companies of Imperial Tobacco. Under the management of James Augustus Thomas from Lawsonville, in North Carolina’s Rockingham County, by 1919 the Shanghai factory was producing more than 243 million cigarettes per week. Thomas worked closely with the local Wing Tai Vo Tobacco Company, which developed into BAT’s principal Chinese partner after its success with the “Ruby Queen” cigarette brand.
In 1911, the American Tobacco Company sold its share of the company. Imperial Tobacco gradually reduced its shareholding, but it was not until 1980 that it divested its remaining interests in the company.
At its peak in 1937, BAT manufactured and distributed 55 billion cigarettes in China. The company’s assets were seized by the Japanese in 1941 following their 1937 invasion. In 1949 the company was ejected from China following the foundation of the People’s Republic.
In 1976 the Group companies were reorganised under a new holding company, “B.A.T. Industries”. In 1994 BAT acquired its former parent, American Tobacco Company (though reorganised after anti-trust proceedings). This brought the Lucky Strike and Pall Mall brands into BAT’s portfolio.
In 1999 it merged with Rothmans International, which included a share in a factory in Burma. This made it the target of criticism from human rights groups. It sold its share of the factory in 2003 after an “exceptional request” from the British government.
Access Bank plc, commonly known as Access Bank, is a Nigerian multinational commercial bank, owned by Access Bank Group. It is licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, the national banking regulator.
Originally a corporate bank, they expanded into personal and business banking in 2012. Access Bank and Diamond Bank merged on April 1, 2019. In conclusion of its merger with Diamond Bank, Access Bank unveiled its new logo, signalling the commencement of a new enlarged banking entity. The bank employs more than 28,000 people in 2021.
After the merger, with more than 42 million of customers, Access Bank plc became the largest bank in Africa by customer base, and the largest bank in Nigeria by asset.
Access Bank Group
As of September 2021, in addition to Nigeria, Access Bank plc has subsidiaries in Mozambique, Zambia, Congo, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and in the United Kingdom. Access Bank Group also maintains representative offices in China, India, Lebanon and United Arab Emirates.
African expansion
In early 2021, Access Bank announced that it had identified eight new African countries for potential expansion, seeking to benefit from a continent-wide free trade agreement. The target markets are Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Angola, Namibia and Ethiopia, which would extend the international presence of the bank to 18 countries. Access Bank is expected to establish offices in some countries and in others, should partner with existing banks and leverage its digital platforms to provide services to clients.
French and European expansion
In July 2021, the French government manifested its will to strengthen its ties with Nigerian captains of industry including Herbert Wigwe, the group managing director of Access Bank, and announced that an agreement had been signed which would allow the group to settle in France. This agreement confirms the group’s vision and desire to extend its influence and activities to all of France and gradually to all of Europe.
The opening of Access Bank in Paris will be managed by the group’s London branch, headed by Britain’s Jamie Simmonds. The new offices in France will focus on trade finance. The Nigerian bank is also considering embarking on investment and wealth management services.
PZ Cussons plc is a major British manufacturer of personal healthcare products and consumer goods. It operates worldwide, especially in nations in Africa and the Commonwealth. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
History
Paterson Zochonis (PZ) (1884–1929)
The company was formed by George Zochonis and George Paterson as a commodity trading business in the Sierra Leone Colony and Protectorate under the name Paterson Zochonis (PZ) in 1884. It expanded its operations into what is now Nigeria before the end of the nineteenth century.
PZ (1929–1951)
Paterson Zochonis expanded considerably under Constantine Zochonis between 1929 and 195, when as chairman he acquired factories and established offices in Ghana and Kenya. Under the management of C.P. Zochonis, PZ invested in its host countries by opening factories and shops there.[ In 1948 PZ took over a Nigerian soap manufacturer. “This proved to be a landmark in the company’s history, as soap was to become a major part of its trade”. However, under the management of C.P. Zochonis, the company allowed colonial attitudes to affect local African peoples.
PZ and PZ Cussons (1951–2006)
From 1951, Alexander Loupos, cousin of Constantine Zochonis, took over PZ as chairman. John Zochonis became chairman in the 1970s. Paterson Zochonis continued to expand under John Zochonis, It was one of three or four firms which commercially dominated Guinea as a colony before 1958.
The company acquired Cussons Group (founded by Thomas Cussons) from the Cussons family in 1975. Offices and factories were established in Thailand and Indonesia in 1986 and 1988 respectively.
The company bought the state owned Pollena Wroclaw in Poland in 1993, followed in 1995 by Pollena Uroda, and in 2002, Paterson Zochonis plc was renamed PZ Cussons plc. PZ Cussons sold the brand 1001 Carpet Cleaner in February 2004 to the American WD40 Company for £6.2 million. PZ Cussons closed its factory in Nottingham in February 2005 (founded by Gerard Bros.) and relocated the operations to Thailand.
PZ (from 2006)
PZ Cussons announced new plans in August 2006 to move its remaining factory in England from Kersal to Swinton, both in the City of Salford.
PZ Cussons acquired the Sanctuary Spa and Sanctuary products business in January 2008 for £75 million. Alex Kanellis, who had been chief executive officer since June 2006, stepped down from that position in December 2019. The company announced that Jonathan Myers would be the new chief executive officer effective from 1 May 2020.
Operations
PZ Cussons Group has a marketing presence in Europe, Africa and Asia.
PZ Cussons until recently had factories in Salford, Nigeria, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Greece, Kenya, and Poland. The factories in Greece and Poland, together with local commercial operations were sold in the summer of 2012 as part of an initiative to focus on core business.
PZ Cussons’ main brand is the Imperial Leather range of soaps, bath and shower and cosmetic products. PZ Cussons operates a joint venture electrical superstore, Haier Thermocool, in Lagos, Nigeria and also operates in Ghana. The largest single market for PZ Cussons is Nigeria. This is served by the subsidiary company PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc, which employs over 3,500 people and is listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
AXA Mansard Insurance plc was incorporated in 1989 as a private limited liability company and is registered as a composite company with the National Insurance Commission of Nigeria (NAICOM). Our products range from Life to Property and Casualty for individuals, commercial solutions for SMEs and corporate organisations.
AXA Mansard Insurance plc is rated B+ by A.M. Best (2016) for Financial Strength. The Company is also certified ISO 9001:2008 compliant by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) for quality management systems.
AXA Mansard Insurance has a 24hour dedicated Customer Interface team which is responsible for resolution of customer enquiries and complaints. Our goal is to be accessible whenever and wherever our customers need us and serve them satisfactorily
Shell Nigeria is the common name for Shell plc’s Nigerian operations carried out through four subsidiaries—primarily Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC). Royal Dutch Shell’s joint ventures account for more than 21% of Nigeria’s total petroleum production (629,000 barrels per day (100,000 m3/d) (bpd) in 2009).
The company has been controversial in communities in the Niger Delta, who point to its poor environmental record and that most of the economic benefit from oil exploitation has not benefited local communities. In particular, when, in 1993 the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) organized large protests against Shell and the government, it led to repression of the local community.
The company has been responsible for some significant oil spills in the Niger delta, and both Nigerian and European courts have held them liable for environmental destruction. One of the most significant cases was at one of Shell’s oil extraction facilities located in the Ejama-Ebubu community.
History
Shell started business in Nigeria in 1938 as “Shell D’Arcy” and was granted an exploration license. In 1956, Shell Nigeria discovered the first commercial oil field at Oloibiri in the Niger Delta and started oil exports in 1958. Prior to the discovery of oil, Nigeria like many other African countries strongly relied on agricultural exports to other countries to support its economy. Many Nigerians thought the developers were looking for palm oil.
Chevron Corporation is an American multinational energy corporation predominantly specializing in oil and gas. The second-largest direct descendant of Standard Oil, and originally known as the Standard Oil Company of California (shortened to Socal or CalSo), it is headquartered in San Ramon, California, and active in more than 180 countries. Within oil and gas, Chevron is vertically integrated and is involved in hydrocarbon exploration, production, refining, marketing and transport, chemicals manufacturing and sales, and power generation.
Chevron traces its history back to the 1870s to small California-based oil companies which were acquired by Standard and merged into Standard Oil of California. The company grew quickly on its own after the breakup of Standard Oil by continuing to acquire companies and partnering with others both inside and outside of California, eventually becoming one of the Seven Sisters that dominated the global petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the 1970s. In 1985, Socal merged with the Pittsburgh-based Gulf Oil and rebranded as Chevron; the newly merged company later merged with Texaco in 2001. Chevron manufactures and sells fuels, lubricants, additives, and petrochemicals, primarily in Western North America, the US Gulf Coast, Southeast Asia, South Korea and Australia. In 2018, the company produced an average of 791,000 barrels (125,800 m3) of net oil-equivalent per day in United States.
Chevron is one of the largest companies in the world and the second largest oil company based in the United States by revenue, only behind fellow Standard Oil descendant ExxonMobil. Chevron ranked 10th on the Fortune 500 in 2023. The company is also the last-remaining oil and gas component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since ExxonMobil’s exit from the index in 2020.
Chevron has been subject to numerous controversies arising out of its activities, the most notable of which being related to its activities and inherited liabilities from its acquisition of Texaco in the Lago Agrio oil field, which include allegations of both Chevron and Texaco collectively dumping 18 billion tons of toxic waste and spilling 17 million US gallons (64,000,000 L) of petroleum. Chevron and Texaco’s activities were the subject of a lawsuit Chevron lost to Ecuadorian residents defended in Ecuadorian court by Steven Donziger. Due to accusations of Donziger bribing the Ecuadorian court and the subsequent disbarment and criminal contempt charges against Donziger, Chevron was accused by environmentalists and human rights groups of jailing Donziger and compelling the US Federal Government to deny Donziger due process of law.
Interswitch is a leading African integrated payments and digital commerce platform company headquartered in Lagos. Founded in 2002 in Nigeria, as a transaction switching and processing company with national focus, Interswitch progressively evolved to incorporate consumer financial services with the successive launches of Quickteller, a retail payments ecosystem linking merchants and billers with consumers, as well as Verve, a homegrown, EMV-certified payments card scheme.
History
After using an ATM for the first time in Scotland, Mitchell Elegbe developed an idea to create electronic payment infrastructure in Nigeria while he was working on implementing SWIFT. Working at Telnet, his boss approved the transaction switch. However most players he sold to were not interested in the software for switching; this led him to creating Interswitch so as to meet his targets. With the assistance of Accenture, Elegbe and his team established the company, of which he then became CEO. In 2010 two thirds of the company was sold to a consortium led by Helios Investment Partners. In 2011 Interswitch took a 60 per cent stake in Bankom in Uganda.
In 2013 Interswitch entered into an agreement for payment processing with Discover Financial Services.
In September 2014 the company acquired a majority shareholding in Paynet Group, an East-African payments provider.
In 2015 Interswitch launched a $10m investment fund for African start-ups in the payments sector.
In February 2018, Interswitch unveiled its SPAK National Science Competition to promote and reward excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics in Nigeria.
In January 2023, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued Interswitch a Payments Service Holding Company (PSHC) License. This served as one of the inaugural licensees by the CBN in this category. The development interestingly coincided with Interswitch’s 20th anniversary commemoration, which has seen the Company cement its position as a pioneering and integral enabler that has actively supported the growth and development of fintech and payments progressively across Africa over the last 20 years.
Airtel Networks Limited is a leading telecommunications services provider with headquarters in Lagos, the commercial nerve-centre of Nigeria. The telco ranks amongst the top three mobile service providers in terms of subscribers with a customer base of more than 50 million as at December, 2019. The company’s product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, Home Broadband and enterprise services.
Airtel Networks Limited is a subsidiary of Airtel Africa Plc, a Pan-African telecommunications company with operations in 14 countries across Africa.
Airtel Africa is driven by the vision of providing affordable and innovative mobile services to all and is supported in pursuing this vision by its largest shareholder, Bharti Airtel. Its product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless voice and data services and mobile commerce through ‘Airtel Money’. Airtel Africa had over 110 million customers across its operations at the end of March, 2020.
Airtel Networks Limited is intensely interested and committed to supporting laudable causes through its Corporate Social Investment initiatives in Nigeria. Leveraging on its award-winning Touching Lives programme, Adopt-a-School initiative and Employee Volunteer Scheme, it has invested both financial and material resources to assist many communities as well as uplift underprivileged people across Nigeria. Its various CSR initiatives have directly and indirectly impacted Nigerians in the various communities where it operates.
KEY MILESTONES
- 2001 – Awarded Digital Mobile License (DML) for communication services in Nigeria
- 2001 – Becomes first telecoms operator to launch commercial GSM services on August 5
- 2003 – Wins Most Customer Sensitive Network (Thisday Newspapers)
- 2003 – Wins Best Customer-Friendly Network (Telecoms Awards)
- 2005 – Wins Best Customer Care Operator (Telecoms Awards)
- 2005 – Wins GSM Company of the Year (City People Magazine)
- 2006 – Wins Best Customer Care Operator (Telecoms Awards)
- 2006 – Wins Best Customer Care Mobile Company (IT & Telecoms Digest, 2006)
- 2007 – Wins the Brand of the Year and Good Governance Awards (Thisday Awards)
- 2008 – Wins Best Customer Care Award (Nigerian Communications Commission)
- 2009 – Wins the Best Customer Care Award (Nigerian Information Technology and Telecoms Awards)
- 2010 – Launches service under the brand name Airtel.
- 2011 – Becomes the first Telco to rollout 3.75G Network pan Nigeria
- 2011 – Launches award-winning CSR programme, Adopt-a-School
- 2011 – Wins the Best Customer Care Operator (Telecoms Awards)
- 2011 – Wins the CSR Awards for Educational Development (Organized PR Practitioners)
- 2012 – Adjudged by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management as the Telco with best HR practices
- 2012 – Becomes first Telco to complete 4G LTE field trial
- 2012 – Becomes first Telco to launch the revolutionary HD Voice Service
- 2013 – Wins triple awards for customer service, brand innovation and company of the year at the prestigious Nigerian Telecoms Awards.
- 2013 – Adjudged best Telco Company by CIPM for best HR practices in telecoms sector
- 2014 – Launches Airtel Touching Lives, revolutionary CSR programme to uplift the less privilege
- 2014 – Adjudged by the prestigious SERA Panel as Best CSR Company in Education delivery
- 2015 – Bagged the Association of Telecommunications Company of Nigeria’s Merit Award
- 2015 – Named Telecoms Brand of the Year by the African Leadership Magazine
- 2016 – Named Most Friendly Customer Operator by the Nigerian Telecoms Awards
- 2016 – Airtel Nigeria’s CEO, Segun Ogunsanya, named Telecoms CEO of the Year by the Nigerian Telecoms Awards
- 2016 – Airtel Nigeria’s CEO, Segun Ogunsanya, named Telecoms CEO of the Year by Marketing Edge Magazine
- 2016 – Airtel Nigeria was awarded the ‘Best Company in Reduction of Inequality’ (SDG 10) at the prestigious SERA Awards, a notable platform that recognizes exceptional CSR interventions in Nigeria.
- 2017 – Awarded great place to work in Jobberman
- 2017 – Airtel’s TVC, Data is Life, bags three awards at African Cristal Festival
- 2017 – Airtel gets award for selfless service, joins LUTH for World Blood Donor Day
- 2017 – Airtel Adjudged Best Company In Recruitment
- 2017 – CEO Named Best Telecoms CEO In Africa
- 2017 – Airtel Nigeria bags LCCI Service Excellence in Telecom Award
- 2017 – Airtel adjudged Most Outstanding Customer-Centric Telecoms Brand by MarketingEdge
- 2017 – Payment Innovation in Telecom Award at INTERSWITCH Awards
- 2017 – Airtel Wins Award for Excellence in CSR at Global Patriot Newspaper’s
- 2017 – Telecom CEO of the Year Award
- 2017 – NTITA CSR Execellence Award
- 2017 – Best TV Commercial campaign Award
- 2017 – Airtel adjudged best company in stakeholder engagement at SERAS 2017
- 2017 – Airtel’s Lost TVC wins Gold at Epica Awards
- 2017 – Airtel’s TVC Lost wins best Commercial at LAIF Awards
- 2018 – Brand of the Year Award conferred by Leadership Newspapers
- 2018 – Marketing Edge Awards for Most Innovative CSR Campaign with Airtel Touching Lives
- 2018 – Campaign of the Year by the Advertisers Association of Nigeria (ADVAN) at the 2018 ADVAN Marketing Excellence Awards
- 2018 – Best Advertising Campaigns at 2018 African Cristal Awards
- 2018 – The Pitcher Advertiser of the Year Award
- 2018 – HIV & AIDS Response for CSR initiative by Lagos State AIDS Control Agency (LSACA)
- 2019 – Leadership Newspapers Brand of the Year
- 2019 – Daily Independent Newspaper Brand of the Year
- 2019 – SERA Awards CEO of the Year Award
- 2019 – SERA Awards for Best Use of Storytelling
- 2020 – Airtel wins silver & bronze awards for Digital campaign of the year at the Pitcher Awards for Chores, Stew & Conditioning.
- 2020 – Smarttalk campaign TVCs wins Bronze & Silver at the Pitcher Awards
Globacom Limited, commonly known as Glo (Global communication), is a Nigerian multinational telecommunications company founded on 29 August 2003 by Mike Adenuga. As of June 2018, the company employs more than 3,500 people worldwide.
Overview
GLO has over 45 million subscribers (December 2018), making it the second largest network operator in Nigeria.
In 2011, GLO became the first telecommunication company to build an $800 million high-capacity fibre-optic cable known as Glo-1, a submarine cable from the United Kingdom to Nigeria. It is the first successful submarine cable from the United Kingdom to Nigeria.
Globacom has the following strategic business units: Glo mobile, Glo Broad Access, Glo Gateway and Glo-1.
Ownership
GLO is privately owned by the Mike Adenuga Group which also consists of Cobblestone Properties and Estates, a real estate and property development company, Conoil PLC, a petroleum marketing company, and Conoil Producing, a crude exploration and production company.
Strategic business units
Glo Mobile
Glo Mobile, a subsidiary of Globacom, is Nigeria’s second largest Mobile Network Operator. In the first year of operation, it had one million subscribers in over 87 towns in Nigeria and over 120 billion Naira in revenues. Glo Mobile has now spread to other African countries, namely Benin and Ghana. Glo Mobile’s subscriber base in Nigeria stood at over 45 million by December 2018. As at November, 2020, the subscription level has hit 54 million.
Glo 1 submarine cable
GLO-1 is the first successful submarine cable from the United Kingdom to Nigeria, and GLO is the first individual African company to embark on such a project.
GLO-1 has the potential to provide high speed internet services, faster, more reliable and cheaper telecom services. Glo-1 will potentially facilitate foreign investment and employment opportunities especially to Africans.
The 9,800 km long cable originates from Bude in the UK and is laid from this origin to Alpha Beach in Lagos, where it will have its landing station. Glo-1 will also improve teleconferencing, distance learning, disaster recovery and telemedicine among several other benefits for Nigerians and the people of West Africa.
By country
In August 2003, Glo Mobile was launched in Nigeria. Glo Mobile introduced lower tariffs, pay per second billing and alongside other value added services. Although Glo Mobile was the fourth GSM operator to launch in Nigeria, within seven years of the company’s operation, its subscriber base has grown to over 25 million.
In June 2008, Glo Mobile was launched in Benin. Glo Mobile showed unprecedented growth through the sale of 600,000 SIM cards in the first ten days of operation. Glo Mobile offered Per Second Billing, which charges subscribers for the exact airtime used. They also offered other value added services such as MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service), Glo Magic Plus news and information, vehicle tracking, musical ring-back tones and mobile banking.
In May 2008, GLO acquired an operating license through its Glo Mobile division in Ghana and plans to capture 30% of the current 11 million subscriber market within 18 months of launch. They plan on achieving this goal by launching with bundled voice and Internet services for Ghana and through specifically targeting ‘un-serviced’ areas outside Ghana’s two major cities, Accra and Kumasi. Glo Mobile was set to launch in Ghana the first quarter of 2010. This has however been postponed to the third quarter of 2011, and again to 2012. In January 2012, Glo Ghana opened the “Reserve your number” campaign, but still without opening the network. On 8 April 2011 GLO launched the sub-marine optical fiber GLO1, one part of its maiden operation in Ghana, to usher in another major player in the Ghana telecommunication industry.
In October 2009, GLO acquired submarine cable landing rights and International Gateway Services in Côte d’Ivoire.
History
In 2005, Glo Mobile introduced the Glo Fleet Manager which is a vehicle tracking solution. Glo Fleet Manager helps transporters/fleet operators manage their fleet. They also introduced the Glo Mobile internet service which provides subscribers with access to internet sites which have been customized for mobile phone browsing.
In 2006, Glo Mobile introduced BlackBerry. GLO started the sponsorship of the Confederation of African Football African Player of the Year Award. The company also started the sponsorship of Glo Lagos International Half Marathon.
In 2009, Glo Mobile launched Blackberry prepaid services which gives subscribers options to pay daily, weekly or monthly for the service. Blackberry prepaid service gives subscribers free yahoo mail access and free blackberry messenger. The company also launched 3G high speed internet services through the sale of its 3G modem. Glo Mobile 3G network is available in Lagos, Abuja, Benin and Port Harcourt.
Cadbury Nigeria Plc is a food, sweets and drink company headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria and traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Cadbury Nigeria Plc is a subsidiary of Mondelez International, one of the largest snacking companies in the world. The firm’s flagship product is Bournvita and it competes with brands from Nestle, GlaxoSmithKline and Promasidor. They specialised in production and sales of food products. Their activity is organized around 2 families of product: Confectionery and beverages: Bournvita, Tom Tom, Ahomka,Ginger, Hacks and Buttermint brands. Cocoa-based products: cocoa powder, cocoa butter, cocoa liqueur and cocoa cakes.
Empowerment and initiatives
At a media discussion held at the company’s headquarters in Lagos on October 5, 2022, Cadbury Nigeria Plc, a subsidiary of Mondelez International and the manufacturer of the renowned cocoa beverage Bournvita, presented outstanding participants of the annual Tech Boot Camp since its commencement. Since the boot camp’s launch in 2019, Bournvita has trained more than 1,200 students in keeping with our social objective of promoting literacy by empowering young people to lead with digital skills. The project is in line with the company’s initiatives to work with parents to support their children in pursuing their aspirations. Since its start, the boot camp has given Nigerian kids between the ages of 9 and 16 a place to learn and hone their talents in a variety of STEM-related fields, including artificial intelligence, gaming, robotics, and coding. 534 applications were chosen for the Bournvita Tech Bootcamp out of the 8,466 entries submitted for the 2022 session, a 44% increase over the 370 participants in 2021. By spearheading initiatives that encourage young people’s scholastic development, Cadbury Nigeria has improved the mental and physical health of Nigerians through its flagship brand, Bournvita. Some of the brand’s initiatives to make a positive difference in children’s lives across the nation and to encourage them to develop relevant skills and talent for the 21st century include the Bournvita School Program, Bournvita Tech Boot Camp, and Bourn Factor Talent Competition.
History
Cadbury Schweppes history in Nigeria dates back to the 1950s when it began sourcing for cocoa and also importing bulk products and repacking it into tins for sale in the country. Later finding increasing market opportunities in the country, the group set up a manufacturing facility in January 1965.
The firm became a publicly quoted company in 1976 when Cadbury Schweppes sold 20% of its interest in the firm. The firm’s investment in the integration of its supply chain led to the establishment of a sorghum conversion plant and Stanmark Industries in Ondo, a cocoa processing plant. Stanmark provides raw materials for its key product, Bournvita and is a source of foreign currency through exportation of cocoa products. In 2006, the subsidiary processed 15,000 tonnes of cocoa beans into cocoa butter, cocoa liquor and cocoa powder.
In 2006, the firm released a statement disclosing financial misstatements in a number of previous annual reports. Immediately after the disclosure, the CEO and finance director resigned their positions. The firm later announced it will be taking exceptional item charges on its balance sheet as a result of the misstatements.
Brands
The firm’s major products are Bournvita and Tom Tom. The former was introduced to the country in 1960 and the latter in 1970. Following the establishment of a manufacturing plant in 1965, the firm spent funds on advertising Bournvita, and in the process increased the market share of the brand. Bournvita later became a market leader in its category. To improve nutritional needs, in 1994, the firm included essential vitamins and minerals in Bournvita.
Other products of the company include Cadbury Eclairs, Malta sweets, Trebor and Peppermint original. Beverages contributed 58% of its revenues in 2018 and sweets contributed 26%. In addition, it markets Creme Rollers, Chocki, Hall Take 5 and Bubba Gum.
In 2022 financial year, Cadbury Nigeria reports 110% increase in profit after tax from N449.712 million achieved a year ago to N946.093 million.
Jumia is a Pan-African technology company that is built around a marketplace, logistics service and payment service. The logistics service enables the delivery of packages through a network of local partners while the payment services facilitate the payments of online transactions within Jumia’s ecosystem. It has partnered with more than 100,000 active sellers and individuals and it competes at various levels, indirectly with retailers such as Jiji and Maybrands limited, and is a direct competitor to Konga in Nigeria, and Amazon and Noon in Egypt.
History
In 2012, Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec, ex-McKinsey consultants, founded Jumia along with Tunde Kehinde and Raphael Kofi Afaedor.
Jumia was launched in Nigeria in 2012 and expanded to five other countries: Egypt, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Kenya and South Africa. In 2014, the company launched offices in Tunisia, Tanzania , Ghana , Cameroon , Algeria and Uganda , and by 2018 it was present in 14 African countries. In Egypt, Jumia has been trying to categorize itself as one of the leading e-commerce websites.
In June 2013, Jumia launched Jumia Travel, a hotel booking platform, and Jumia Food, a food delivery platform. Jumia Deals was launched in April 2015. In 2017, Jumia launched Jumia One, an app that enables customers to pay bills such as airtime. The same year, Jumia launched JumiaPay, a secure payment for people to shop on all Jumia services. This was followed by the Jumia lending program, an initiative that allows its vendors to access business loans.
In South Africa, Jumia operates under the brand name Zando (zando.co.za), focusing only on online fashion retail.
At the end of 2015, the founders of Jumia appointed Juliet Anammah as the CEO of Jumia Nigeria so that they could concentrate on global control of the company. Massimiliano Spalazzi took over from Juliet as CEO in Nigeria in January 2020 and Juliet was appointed as the chairwoman of Jumia Nigeria and the Head of Institutional Affairs, Africa.
In 2015, Jumia generated $234 million in revenue, which stands for a 265% growth from 2014. In 2016, Jumia became the continent’s first unicorn being valued over 1 billion USD. In late November 2018, Jumia partnered with cryptocurrency company Telcoin to enhance payment service capabilities throughout their areas of operation. The same month, Jumia and Carrefour signed a partnership to sell online products in Africa.
In April 2019, Jumia went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and raised $196 million in net proceeds. The share price, initially offered at $14.50, rose more than 200% in the first three trading sessions. The first analyst papers release 21 days after the IPO rated the company at stock targets between 27 and 40 USD. After reaching a peak of nearly $50 on 1 May 2019, the share value has declined to under $5/share by year’s end.
In November 2019, Jumia announced the suspension of its e-commerce operations in Cameroon effective on 18 November as the company concluded that its transactional portal is currently not suitable to the current environment in Cameroon. As part of the portfolio optimization effort, Jumia later ceased operations in Tanzania effective on 27 November 2019. While Jumia operations in Tanzania provided many opportunities for customers and vendors, the company said it needed to focus its resources on other markets that can bring the best value and help Jumia thrive. The decision, the company affirmed, would help it achieve greater success in the future. On 9 December 2019, Jumia suspended Jumia Food in Rwanda, making it the 3rd country in two months as part of a continuous monitoring of the business environment and operating costs in the markets in which it operates. Jumia, however, vowed to continue doing business online in those countries on the classifieds portals, previously called Jumia Deals.
On 9 December 2019, Travelstart entered into a distribution and commercial agreement with Jumia Travel, Jumia’s hotel booking platform, to power the latter’s pan-African online travel booking portal. Under the agreement, Travelstart took control of the sales, fulfilment and customer service aspects of Jumia Travel online booking websites in all its operating territories.
In 2020, Jumia experienced a shift in shopping habits across its markets in Africa as more shoppers bought everyday products as opposed to electronics. Shopping for essentials such as foodstuff, fashion and beauty products saw Jumia’s total sales value of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods grow by 13 percentage points last year, from 44% in 2019, according to the Jumia Africa E-commerce Index 2021.
In 2020, Jumia ranked 7th among the top 10 influential brands in Egypt.
In 2021, Jumia launched its technology centre in Egypt to provide its services to the Egyptian market as well as Africa at large.
COVID-19 accelerated the growth of e-commerce and digital entrepreneurship in Africa and more women have embraced digital business. On the Jumia platform, over a third of businesses in Côte d’Ivoire and over half in Kenya and Nigeria are owned by women according to IFC.
In November 2022, Jumia announced leadership changes to support its journey towards profitability with the appointment of a new Management Board and Acting CEO, while Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec, Co-CEOs, resigned from their roles. The Supervisory Board appointed Francis Dufay as Acting CEO and elevated Antoine Maillet-Mezeray to Executive Vice President Finance & Operations.
In February 2023, the Supervisory Board appointed Francis Dufay as CEO after spending three months as acting CEO of Jumia. The company is focused on making “radical changes” around better cost management and building the right fundamentals for growth as well as penetration outside of capital cities, i.e. smaller cities close to rural areas.
In November 2023, Jumia delivered a strong Q3 2023 on losses reduction and cash management with Adjusted EBITDA loss reached $14.9m, down by 67% YoY and Operating loss $18.5m, down by 57% YoY. Jumia saw a Year-over-Year increase in GMV of physical goods in five countries, which shows evident that its new strategy is working.
In December 2023, Jumia announced plans to discontinue food delivery across seven markets, shifts focus to expanding physical goods business. The decision is in line with its strategy to optimize its capital and resource allocation and to continue its path to profitability.
Konga.com is a Nigerian e-commerce company founded in July 2012 with headquarters in Gbagada, Lagos State. It offers a third-party online marketplace, as well as first-party direct retail spanning various categories including consumer electronics, fashion, home appliances, books, children’s items, computers & accessories, phones and tablets, health care, and personal care products. The company also has a logistics service (EXPRESS), which enables the timely shipment and delivery of packages to customers.
History
Konga was founded in July 2012 by Sim Shagaya, with a staff of 20 people. The site initially functioned as a Lagos-only online retailer focused on merchandise in the Baby, Beauty, and Personal Care categories, but broadened its scope to all of Nigeria in December 2012 and gradually expanded merchandise categories through 2012 and 2013. This expansion may have been a response to Konga’s major competitor, Rocket Internet-backed Jumia, which launched around the same time.
In early 2013, Konga raised a $10 million Series A round from Investment AB Kinnevik and Naspers. In Q2 2013, Konga beta-tested ‘Konga Mall,’ opening up the Konga platform to third-party retailers and moving away from a pure first-party online retail model. In late 2013, Konga finalized a $25 million Series B round from previous investors, Investment AB Kinnevik and Naspers, the largest single round raised by a single African startup at the time. On November 29, 2013, Konga.com crashed and remained offline for 45 minutes as a result of unprecedented traffic stemming from its Black Friday promotion. Konga sold more during the first six hours of the promotion than it did in the prior month.
Konga officially launched its third-party retail platform in the first half of 2014, rebranding it as ‘Marketplace’ from ‘Konga Mall’; by the end of 2014, Konga’s Marketplace featured 8,000 merchants, beating internal targets of 1,000 merchants eight-fold. Konga received US$3.5 million worth of orders during its 2014 Black Friday promotion, compared to US$300,000 during the promotion in the previous year. Konga reportedly grew 2014 revenue 450% from 2013. In late 2014, Konga finalized a $40 million Series C round from Investment AB Kinnevik and Naspers, the largest single round raised by a single African startup to date. Despite reports that Naspers acquired 50% of Konga in 2013, publicly traded Naspers disclosed that its stake in Konga after the October 2014 Series C investment was 40.22%. Konga was reportedly valued at approximately $200 million as of the Series C.
In January 2015, Konga was ranked as the most visited website in Nigeria by Alexa Internet. According to CEO Sim Shagaya, Konga “leads the field in Nigeria today [early 2015] in Gross Merchandise Value,” a metric measuring the total value of merchandise sold through a particular marketplace.
Konga announced it acquired the assets and mobile money license of Internet Nigeria Limited in June 2015, thereby meeting the Central Bank of Nigeria’s legal requirement for the provision of mobile payment services. The acquisition will support KongaPay, launched in August 2015, which was Konga’s solution to facilitate the uptake of cashless electronic payments. With over 80 million mobile internet users in Nigeria, Konga has made online payment easy with its delivery payment option embraced by its numerous users.
Oando Plc is a Nigerian multinational energy company operating in the upstream, midstream and downstream.
In July 2016, Oando entered into a tri-partite agreement with the Vitol Group, an independent trader of energy commodities and Helios Investment Partner, an Africa-focused private investment firm to form OVH (formerly known as Oando Downstream).
In September 2016, Oando announced the execution of a definitive agreement with a vehicle owned by funds advised by Helios Investment Partners LLP (“Helios”), a premier Africa-focused private investment firm, to acquire 49% of the voting rights in Oando’s midstream business subsidiary, Oando Gas and Power Limited.
Oando is Nigeria’s indigenous oil and gas company with a production output of 43,000 barrels (6,800 cubic metres) per day of oil equivalent, enterprise value of N520 billion and market capitalisation value of N115.1 billion.
History
Oando’s earliest roots can be traced to the formation of Esso Africa in 1956. Esso Africa was a downstream marketing company, a subsidiary of the Exxon Corporation of USA. To increase availability of petroleum products in the hinterland, in 1976 the Nigerian government purchased a controlling stake in the company and rebranded the company as Unipetrol Nigeria. On 1 March 1991, Unipetrol became a Public Limited company. Later on in the same year, the Nigerian government sold 60% equity to the Nigerian public in an initial public offering. By February 1992, Unipetrol was listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
In 1999, Unipetrol acquired a 40% stake in Gaslink Nigeria Limited, a gas utility company. The acquisition was motivated by a desire to utilize its exclusive gas sale and purchase agreement with the Nigerian gas company. In 2001, the company increased its stake to 51 per cent. So far, Gaslink has developed 250 km of gas pipeline infrastructure.
In 2000, Ocean and Oil, a private investment company led by Nigerian entrepreneurs Adewale Tinubu and Omamofe Boyo acquired a 30% controlling interest in Unipetrol Plc. In 2001, Ocean and Oil increased its stake in Unipetrol to 42% via an irredeemable convertible loan stock issue.
In 2002, Ocean and Oil led Unipetrol’s bid for a 60% stake of Agip Nigeria Plc, a rival petroleum marketing firm, owned by Agip Petroli BV, an Italian-based oil company. The merged company was named Oando PLC in 2003, making the company the largest downstream petroleum marketing company in Nigeria.
In 2005, Oando Energy Services was incorporated as an integrated Oilfield Services company to achieve the group’s objectives in the upstream services industry.
In 2007, Oando Energy services acquired two oil drilling rigs in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. In 2008, the company emerged Nigeria’s first indigenous oil company with interests in producing deep water assets through the acquisition of equity in two oil blocks. By 2009, the company had acquired 5 swamp rigs and in 2010, the company launched its first Independent Power Plant for the Lagos Water Corporation. The project involved the construction of a 12.5MW power plant to provide uninterrupted power supply to the Lagos Water Corporation.
In 2011, Oando Gas and Power (now Axxela) commissioned 128 km EHGC Pipeline, the pipeline was built under a joint venture arrangement with the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). The gas infrastructure has the capacity to deliver up to 100 million cubic feet per day (2.8 million cubic metres per day) at standard pressure of natural gas and will deliver an initial 22 million cu ft/d (620 thousand m3/d) of gas to its maiden customer, United Cement Company (UNICEM), to fuel its new 2.5million metric tonnes per annum cement plant, located in Mfamosing, Akampka Local Government Area of Cross River State.
In 2012, Oando Exploration and Production Limited (“OEPL”) signed a farm-in agreement with Network Exploration & Production Nigeria Limited (“NEPN”) for the acquisition of 40% participating interest in the Qua Iboe field (OML 13) subject to the consent of the Minister of Petroleum.
In 2013, Oando Plc succeeded in raising over N55.2 billion from the capital markets as its Rights Issue recorded 101 per cent subscription. The company issued 4.548 billion shares to existing shareholders at N12 per share between December 2012 and February 2013 with the intention of raising N54.6 billion. Oando Gas and Power commissioned 10.4 MW Alausa Independent Power Plant to provide electricity to the Lagos State Secretariat Complex. Following the decommissioning of OES Professionalism in 2013, OES currently has a fleet of 4 rigs; OES Teamwork, OES Respect, OES Integrity and OES Passion.
In 2014, Oando divested the 128 km Eastern Horizon Gas Company (EHGC) franchise in a $250 Million transaction with Seven Energy.
In 2014, Oando Energy Resources (“OER”) listed on the TSX an affiliate company of Oando PLC entered into agreements with ConocoPhillips (“COP”) to acquire its entire business interests in Nigeria for a total cash consideration of ~ $1.5 Billion.
In June 2015, Oando entered into an agreement with HV Investments II B.V., (“HVI”), a joint venture owned by a fund advised by Helios Investment Partners (“Helios”) and The Vitol Group (“Vitol”), for a cash investment of US$461 million in Oando’s Downstream business.
In 2016, Oando PLC completes a strategic US$115.8 million gas and power agreement with Helios. Oando PLC completes sale of Akute IPP.
In April 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (Nigeria) gave the directive for Oando PLC’s shares to resume trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange after placing the company’s shares on suspension in October 2017 in order to execute a forensic audit.
On 31 May 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission (Nigeria) issued a “Press Release on Investigation of Oando Plc” notifying the public of the conclusion of the commission’s investigations of allegations against Oando. The Commission ordered the resignation of board members implicated and barred “…the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) and the Deputy Group Chief Executive Officer (DGCEO) of Oando Plc from being directors of public companies for a period of five (5) years”.
On Monday 3 June 2019 the Federal High Court of Lagos under presiding Judge C M A Olatoregun granted Oando PLC’s group chief executive, Adewale Tinubu, and deputy group chief executive, Omamofe Boyo, an injunction restraining the Securities and Exchange Commission from executing sanctions, pending the hearing and determination of the applicant’s motion for interlocutory injunction.
On 4 September 2020 Oando announced that the NNPC/NAOC/OANDO Joint Venture made Significant Gas & Condensates Discovery Onshore Niger Delta find in the deeper sequences of the Obiafu-Obrikom fields, in OML61, onshore Niger Delta.
On 13 December 2020 Oando announced the successful signing of two gas supply agreements with Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd (NLNG) for the renewal of gas supply for the existing Trains 1-3 for a term of 10 years and for gas supply for the impending Train 7 for a term of 20 years.
On 19 July 2021, Oando entered into a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The settlement reached by the parties was aimed at preventing further market disruption and harm to Oando PLC’s shareholders. As a result, Oando’s directors and management team have the opportunity to fully focus on business operations whilst continuing to ensure that it is in compliance with all governing statutes.
Sahara group is a leading international energy and infrastructure conglomerate in Nigeria. It specializes in oil and gas and electricity distribution.
Ernst & Young Global Limited, trade name EY, is a multinational professional services partnership. EY is one of the largest professional services networks in the world. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms. It primarily provides assurance (which includes financial audit), tax, consulting and advisory services to its clients.
EY operates as a network of member firms which are structured as separate legal entities in a partnership, which has 312,250 employees in over 700 offices in more than 150 countries around the world. The firm’s current partnership was formed in 1989 by a merger of two accounting firms; Ernst & Whinney and Arthur Young & Co. It was named Ernst & Young until a rebranding campaign officially changed its name to EY in 2013, although this initialism was already used informally prior to its sanctioning adoption.
In 2019, EY was the seventh-largest privately owned organization in the United States. As of 2023, EY has continuously been ranked on Fortune magazine’s list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For for the past 25 years, longer than any other accounting firm.
History
Early history and mergers
EY resulted from several mergers of ancestor firms over the last century and a half, the oldest of which was founded in 1849, in England, as Harding & Pullein. That same year, this firm was joined by an accountant named Frederick Whinney, who, a decade later, became a partner. After his son joined the firm, it was later renamed Whinney, Smith & Whinney, in 1894.
In 1903, the firm Ernst & Ernst was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, by Alwin C. Ernst, and his brother, Theodore Ernst. In 1906, Arthur Young & Co. was set up by a Scottish accountant, Arthur Young, in Chicago. Starting in 1924, these two American firms became allied with prominent British firms; Young with Broads Paterson & Co.; and Ernst with the aforementioned Whinney Smith & Whinney. The latter of these two mergers spawned Anglo-American partnership Ernst & Whinney in 1979, then the fourth largest accountancy firm in the world.
A decade later, in 1989, Ernst & Whinney merged with the fifth largest firm globally at the time, Arthur Young & Co., to create Ernst & Young.
Later developments
In October 1997, Ernst & Young announced plans to merge its global practices with professional services network KPMG, to create the largest professional services organization in the world. The announcement came on the heels of an announced merger between Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand only a month earlier. These plans were soon abandoned in February 1998, due to several factors ranging from client opposition, antitrust issues, cost problems, and the anticipated difficulty of merging the two diverse firms and cultures. The merger between Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand, however, went ahead as planned, creating PwC.
Ernst & Young expanded its consulting practice heavily during the 1980s and 1990s. During this time, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and various members of the investment community, began to raise concerns about a potential conflict of interests. This conflict would be brought about by firms offering both consulting and auditing services simultaneously to overlapping clients, a common practice among the “Big Five”. In May 2000, Ernst & Young was the first of those firms to fully separate its consulting practices via a sale to the French IT services company Capgemini for $11 billion, creating the new company Capgemini Ernst & Young, which was later renamed back to Capgemini.
Stanbic IBTC Holdings, commonly referred to as Stanbic IBTC, is a financial service holding company in Nigeria with subsidiaries in Banking, Stock Brokerage, Investment Advisory, Asset Management, Investor Services, Pension Management, Trustees Insurance Brokerage and life Insurance businesses. The company’s corporate headquarters, I.B.T.C. Place, is situated at Walter Carrington Crescent, Victoria Island, Lagos. Stanbic IBTC Holdings is a member of the Standard Bank Group, a financial services giant based in South Africa. Standard Bank is Africa’s largest banking group ranked by assets and earnings, operations in 20 African countries and 13 countries outside Africa.
Overview
Stanbic IBTC Holdings PLC. came to being as the result of a merger between Stanbic Bank Nigeria Limited and IBTC Chartered Bank Plc. in 2007, then adopting a holding company structure in 2012 to comply with the revised regulatory framework advised by the Central Bank of Nigeria, requiring banks to either divest from non-core banking financial services or adopt a holdings’ company structure.
Before the Merger
IBTC Chartered Bank Plc.
Investment Banking & Trust Company Plc (IBTC) was formed as an investment bank on 2 February 1989 with Atedo N.A. Peterside as chief executive officer. In 2005, the Central Bank of Nigeria announced its re-capitalization program for commercial banks. This meant that all commercial banks had to have a NGN 25 billion minimum capital base. This CBN order led to the merger of Investment Banking and Trust Company (IBTC) with Chartered Bank Plc and Regent Bank Plc on 19 December 2005 to form IBTC Chartered Bank Plc with a total asset base NGN 125 billion and listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.
Stanbic Bank Nigeria Limited
Stanbic Bank Nigeria Limited was founded in 1991 when Standard Bank Investment Corporation (Stanbic Bank), acquired the African operations of ANZ Grindlays Bank. The name was later changed to Stanbic Bank Nigeria Limited and was a wholly owned subsidiary of Stanbic Africa Holdings Limited (SAHL).
The Merger
On 24 September 2007, IBTC Chartered Bank Plc merged with Stanbic Bank Nigeria Limited. Stanbic Africa Holdings Limited (SAHL)on behalf of Standard Bank tendered an offer for the acquisition of additional IBTC shares in order to attain majority shares in the merged business. This resulted in SAHL having a majority shareholding 50.75% up from 33.33% as at the merger date. The business name was subsequently changed to Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc and resumed trading on the NSE.
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