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Subscribe nowThe Inside Story: So He Bought a Bank — How GT Ferreira Was Refused a Banking Licence in 1977, Then Built One of South Africa's Great Fortunes
In 1977, GT Ferreira and two partners applied for a banking licence in South Africa. They were refused. So, over the next eight years, they simply built the thing the regulator wouldn't hand them — buying their way into control of a merchant bank and turning it into the foundation of FirstRand.
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The Inside Story: Two Fronts — How Patrice Motsepe Built a Mining Fortune and a Football Presidency, and the Week Both Came Under Pressure
In 1997 a young Johannesburg lawyer bought gold shafts the big miners were giving up. Today Patrice Motsepe runs African Rainbow Minerals and African football. This week both came under pressure: a lawsuit from his mining partner and unrest inside CAF. The man, and the two fronts.
The Inside Story: After Wigwe — How Herbert Wigwe Bought Access to the Top of Nigerian Banking, and What the Bank Has Become Without Him
In 2002 Herbert Wigwe and Aig Aig-Imoukhuede took over Access, then 65th of 89 Nigerian banks, and bought their way to the top. Since his death in February 2024 the shares have lagged every big rival. The story of the deal-maker, and of the bank he left behind.
The Inside Story: The Long Way Back — How Sudhir Ruparelia Was Expelled From Uganda at 16, Came Home With $25,000 and Built Its Largest Indigenous Bank
Expelled from Uganda at 16, Sudhir Ruparelia came home in 1985 with $25,000, opened the country's first licensed forex bureau and built its largest indigenous bank. Then the central bank took it over. As his London trial opens today, the story of the man and the bank.
The Inside Story: The Long Game — How Femi Otedola Rotated From Oil to Power to Banking and Took the Chair of Nigeria's Oldest Bank
Femi Otedola sold his oil business near its peak, built a power company worth more than ten times its listing value, then sold that too and put the money into Nigeria's oldest bank. Five years later he is its chairman and largest owner. The strategy behind his $815 million quarter.
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South African billionaire Koos Bekker cashes out $500 million to build luxury hotels
Koos Bekker's family trust has sold Naspers and Prosus shares worth about $500 million in three rounds since 2023, earmarking the money for his hotels.
How Nigerian billionaire Tunde Folawiyo's firm got into Paystack and Flutterwave early
Nigerian billionaire Tunde Folawiyo chairs Pave Investments, which backed Paystack and Flutterwave when they were worth a few million dollars and exited both.
Nigerian pipeline billionaire Emeka Okwuosa says Africa can’t run on renewables alone
Oilserv founder Emeka Okwuosa says Nigeria's shift to clean energy must not cost it reliable power: "Energy transition must not be mistaken for energy abandonment."
Nigerian telecoms billionaire Mike Adenuga praised by Onitsha King as “a true man of culture”
The Obi of Onitsha has hailed Nigerian billionaire Mike Adenuga as "a true man of culture," crediting him with helping preserve Nigerian heritage.