The African tech sector is gaining the trust of investors as the years pass, figures published by Wee Tracker demonstrate. In the "Decoding venture investments in Africa" for 2018, the platform reveals that according to data from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) African startups raised a total of $725.6 million in 2018 during 458 fundraising operations, representing a $169.6...

On January 18, 2019, Société Générale confirmed that it sold its custody and trustee services in South Africa to Absa Group, the financial entity born from the sale of an important part of Barclays group's assets in Sub-Sahara Africa. Absa also agreed to keep Société Générale's activities in South Africa, notably, the client portfolio, IT systems, and all the employees used by the group...

The African Development Bank Group and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) signed a letter of intent on Wednesday 16th January 2019 at the Bank’s headquarters in Abidjan. The letter commits the institutions to increase their collaboration to accelerate gender equality, build resilience, and provide improved economic opportunities in Africa’s transition countries. “We...

For two weeks now, there has been a battle between Teleology Holdings Limited and its local partner Teleology Nigeria. Each party accuses the other of breaching the contractual agreement for the acquisition of 9mobile. Caught between the two parties, 9mobile’s subscribers are worried. During an interview with The Vanguard, Deolu Ogunbanjo, president of The National Association of...

The French telecom group Orange has just hit a great milestone in Burkina Faso. On January 15, 2019, it renewed the 2G/ 3G licenses and acquired the 4G + licence for 15 years lifetime. According to Ben Cheick Haidara (photo), managing director of Orange Burkina Faso, the 4G+ licence cost XOF80 billion that will be paid in three tranches. "50% or XOF40 billion as the downpayment, the second...

Shareholders of Ecole Supérieure Privée d'Ingénierie et de Technologie, a higher education institute in Tunisia, required the services of the investment bank Rothschild to help it find a strategic partner for its expansion in Africa and even in Europe, the local website Ilboursa reveals.  The education institute (which has Africinvest and Proparco as some of its shareholders) wants to...

The announcement of a 3.1% growth of South Africa’s retailing sector had a positive impact on the market capitalization of banks and retailing companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Absa Group, FirstRand and Nedbank Group respectively gained 2.8%, 1.2% and 0.5%. SPAR group, Truworths International and Foschini (retailing groups) respectively gained 1.9%, 1.6% and...

The European Union Parliament announced that it elaborated new preferential trade tariffs on imports from Western Sahara. According to a release published by the institution, the new measure, adopted by 444 votes for, 167 against and 68 abstentions, will help reduce tariffs in Western Sahara to the same level as in Morocco. “The [local] Sahrawi people have the right to develop while awaiting...

West Africa is increasingly becoming a fertile ground for pirates, the International Marine Bureau (IMB) reveals in its 2018 report on maritime piracy. While 201 hijacking cases had been recorded in the world in 2018 (against 180 in 2017), West Africa had the highest number of attacks that year. The six ships that were hijacked in 2018 were attacked in the maritime zone between Côte d’Ivoire...

On January 11, 2019, Tanzania’s presidency announced that it reached an agreement with Indian telecom group Bharti Airtel for the increase of its share in Airtel Tanzania.   The announcement was made after discussions in Dar es Salaam between president John Magufuli (photo, at the right) and Bharti Airtel’s president Sunil Mittal (photo, at the left), to resolve the dispute that sparked...