Category Archives: Ethiopia

Ethiopia – Kenya relations impact roads and coastal developments

This week, Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister, Dr. Abiy Ahmed Ali, visited Kenya on a state visit and with his host, President Uhuru Kenyatta made commitments for regional infrastructure projects of aviation roads, railway, and electricity.

According to the joint communique released by Kenya’s President, some resolutions going forward from their talks include:

  • The two countries will develop Moyale on the border as a city and economic zone.
  •  Kenya will avail land to the Ethiopia government at Kenya’s new port in Lamu that is under construction, and Ethiopia will develop that to facilitate logistics for their country,

  • The two countries will develop the LAPSSET projects including the road from Isiolo, (via Moyale) to Addis Ababa, a railway line from Addis to Nairobi and an electricity transmission line between the two countries. They would also supervise the road between Lamu, to Moyale (via Garissa and Isiolo) and on to Addis (via (Hawassa).
  • Ethiopian Airlines would be granted a second flight frequency to Mombasa,
  • Also, the two countries will have joint military training even as the leaders the lack of  international support to combat Alshabab through AMSIOM which faced inadequate funding and attention. The countries would also cooperate on agriculture, and the exchange of prisoners (edit: this is already happening).

Changes at Lamu are coming, including land acquisition by the government which has been slow and sometimes controversial and recently, a court ruled that the government should compensate Lamu fishermen (4,600 of them) for not consulting them on the port design plans.

Barclays launches the Africa Financial Markets Index 

Barclays launched their first edition of the African Financial Markets Index (AFMI) that ranks and compares the depth of financial markets in seventeen African countries. The countries were score against six broad pillars of (1) Financial markets depth, (2) Access to foreign exchange,  (3) Market transparency & the regulatory environment, (4) Macroeconomic opportunity, (5) Enforceability of agreements and (6) Capacity of local investors.

South Africa came out on top of the AFMI with 92 out of 100. It was classified as a highly developed market but (with a) challenging macroeconomic outlook; It was followed distantly by Mauritius (66), Botswana (65) and Namibia (62).

Kenya was ranked fifth (59), just ahead of Nigeria (53) Ghana (49) and Rwanda (48), and Kenya was found to be the most sophisticated in East Africa due to innovations and reforms by the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and the Capital Markets Authority (CMA).  Kenya’s scores were quite consistent across the six pillars with recent developments including the de-mutualization and the IPO of the NSE, the launch of a first exchange-traded fund by Barclays Kenya, and the launch of the M-Akiba bond.

Kenya is the seventh largest stock exchange by market capitalization and sixth by bond listings. But George Asante, Managing Director and Head of Markets at Barclays Africa said that Kenya lacked deep-pocketed market-makers who could broker deals, and take price risks and also that Kenya needed to develop a primary dealership network. He added that the participation of local investors in long long-term investing was quite limited and local investors are critical as they buffer volatility caused by foreign investors. Assets were concentrated among buy-and-hold investors, rather than pension funds and insurers. Kenya’s domestic institutional investors have $12.6 billion of assets but this only works out to  $173 per capita and he suggested that Kenyan markets and regulators needed come up with more securities listings, instruments, and innovations.

Barclays Bank of Kenya Managing Director Jeremy Awori said that “The AFMI will be produced annually to drive conversations, track progress and address gaps in financial markets.” Already countries like Rwanda and Morocco want to use the index data to improve their financial markets.  At the tail end of the AFMI was Egypt, Mozambique, Seychelles and Ethiopia. Ethiopia was scored as “a fast-growing economy but with no financial markets depth or local investor capacity.”  

Guests at the launch included Jeffrey Odundo, CEO of the NSE, and Paul Muthaura, CEO of Kenya’s CMA. Muthaura said the CMA had a master plan to make Kenya a choice destination for capital flows by 2023, while Odundo said the NSE has broadened its  revenue and product base (by introducing REIT’s, ETF’s, M-Akiba and next derivatives, and a new law to govern securities lending), and was working to make Kenya more visible. They are active members of the Africa Securities Exchange Association and will host a “Building African Financial Markets” seminar in Nairobi in April 2018. They also plan to join the World Federation of Exchanges.

The AFMI report can be downloaded here from the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum website; OMFIF produced the report with Barclays Africa. 

Another Ethiopian Airlines Dreamliner First

Last week, Ethiopian Airlines welcomed a new Dreamliner model, the Boeing 787-900 at their base in Addis Ababa. Group CEO Ethiopian Airlines, Mr. Tewolde GebreMariam, said “Our investment in latest technology aircraft such as the 787 and (Airbus) A350, which makes us among the very few airlines in the world to simultaneously operate these two most cutting edge airplanes, is part and parcel of our Vision 2025”

The strategic plan consolidates seven business units including maintenance & repairs, cargo, training, hotels and ground services at the airline which has registered 25% annual growth over the last seven years.

Ethiopian currently has 92 aircraft with 60 on order, and operate from three hubs in Africa (Addis, Lome, Lilongwe) flying to 100 destinations on 5 continents. The fleet includes 20 Boeing 787-800 which have 271 seats, and the new  Boeing 787-9, which is 20 feet longer than the 787-8, will carry 315 passengers and has more cargo space.

Ethiopian was the first airline outside Japan to operate the Boeing 787 in 2012 and also the first African airline to operate the Airbus A350 in 2016. There has been discussion about the diverse fleet at the airline with some expectation that ultimately their long-haul fleet of the future will comprise Boeing 787’s and Airbus A350’s.

Ethiopian Airlines merges with Addis Hub Plan

Last month, Ethiopian Airlines announced that the Ethiopian government had decided to create a new Aviation Holding Group that would include the airline as a centre point.

.. (the)  new Aviation Holding Group with various diversified aviation strategic business units like: Ethiopian Airports Enterprises, Passenger Airline, Cargo Airline and Logistics Company, Ethiopian Aviation Academy, Ethiopian Inflight Catering Services, Ethiopian MRO Services, Ethiopian Hotel and Tourism Services etc.

It will promote customer services by a marriage of passenger inflight experiences with service on the ground at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The model seems to be along the lines of Dubai, and is one that Kenya Airways management has lamented about the need to also have at Nairobi –  and getting Kenya’s national airline aligned with other sectors of the airport and city for Nairobi to be a true aviation hub.

The ultimate aim is to upgrade the customer experience at the airport to meet global standard and thereby making ADD (Addis) airport the best connecting hub in Africa.

More from this Addis Fortune newspaper article:

  • The merger, which is said to be requested by the leadership at Ethiopian Airlines, gave the Group a mandate of providing airport services without discrimination including constructing, expanding, maintaining and managing airports, according to its establishment regulation.
  • Established with an authorised capital of 100 billion Br, the Group was formed after the approval of the regulation by the Council of Ministers. Before the merger, a committee chaired by Sufian Ahmed, an adviser to the Prime Minister and Tewolde, made a feasibility study to draft the regulation.
  • Founded in 1945, Ethiopian Airlines is said to be sub-Saharan Africa’s largest carrier with more than 95 international and 21 domestic destinations. In 2014/15, Ethiopian Airlines earned a net profit of 3.5 billion Br, which makes it among the highest profit earning state-owned enterprises in the country. During the same period, the Airports Enterprise also netted a profit of over half a billion Birr.
  • One of the major goals of the merger of the two state-owned enterprises is also raising the efficiency of the airports and profit.

EAVCA: East Africa Private Equity Snapshot

Ahead of the 3rd Annual Private Equity in East Africa Conference, (taking place on June 15 in Nairobi) the East Africa Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (EAVCA) and KPMG East Africa released their second private equity survey showing increased funding and activity, and with a lot more opportunity for deals to be done.

They estimated that of the $4.8 trillion raised between by P/E funds globally between 2007 and 2016, about $28 billion was raised by Africa-focused funds and $2.7 (including $1.1 billion in 2015-2016) had been earmarked for investment activity in East Africa.

This private equity had funded over 115 deals in the period that were included in the survey. Out of these  the 115 deals, 23 were agri-business, 20 were financial services, 13 manufacturing, and 12 FMGC representing 59% of deal volume. The average deal size had also grown to the $10-15 million range, while in the initial survey it was below $5 million.

East Africa Private Equity Survey

Of the 115 deals, Kenya had 72 deals (63% of the total), Tanzania 19, Ethiopia 8, Uganda 12, and Rwanda at 4. Some of the large deals in the survey, by country, include:

• Rwanda: Cimerwa – PPC ($69M), Cogebanque ($41M), BPR-Atlas Mara ($20M), Pfunda Tea ($20M)
• Uganda: topped by oil deals CNOOC and Total SA (both $1,467 million), Tullow $1,350M, Total $900M, CSquared-Mitsui $100M, Sadolin-Kansai $88M
• Ethiopia: National Tobacco – Japan ($510M), Meta Abo-Johnnie Walker ($255M), Dashen-Duet ($90M), Bedele-Heineken ($85M) and Harar-Heineken ($78M), Tullow-Marathon ($50M)
• Tanzania: Africa Barrick Gold ($4,781 million), Tanzania – Pavilion ($1,250M), Vodacom ($243M), Export Trading Co ($210M), Millicom-SREI ($86M), Zanzibar Telecom-Millicom ($74M)
• Kenya: Safaricom-Vodacom ($2,600 million), Africa Oil-Maersk ($845M), I&M-City Trust ($335M), Ardan-Africa Oil ($329M), Kenya Breweries-EABL $224M, UAP-Old Mutual ($155M), ARM Cement-CDC ($140M), Wananchi ($130M), CMC-AlFuttaim ($127M), Essar ($120M)

P/E operations: There are about 72 funds operating/focused in East Africa (up from 36 in the first survey) with over 300 employees. 89% of the survey respondents have a local presence in East Africa.

Some of the fund companies that responded to the survey include Acumen, Abraaj, AfricInvest, AHL, Ascent, , Catalyst, Centum, CrossBoundary, Grofin, Emerging Capital Partners, Kuramo, Metier, Mkoba, NorFund, Novastar, Phatisa, Pearl Proparco, Swedfund, and TBL Mirror

Returns:  Of  the deals done, survey responders had an average IRR target was 22% while the actual IRR achieved was 19%.  There were 34 exits between 2007 and 2016, with increased recent activity; 2014 (had 7), 2015 (7) and 2016 (6). The preferred mode of exit is sale to a strategic investor (preferred by 78% while this mode accounts for 38% of exits) followed by share buy backs (32%), then sales to another P/E (21%).

Many of the funds in the region are still in early stages, and 54% have made nil returns to their investors. They surveyors estimate there are more opportunities for Africa private equity in health, education, retail, and manufacturing sectors.