Tag: American Businesses in Africa

Business, Visit to Africa

Houston-based Artist Designs Sustainable Furniture With Rare African Woods

From Malawi With Love: Local Artist Designs Custom Furniture That Gives Back

By Susie Tommaney

People come into our lives for a reason. Sometimes they’re just agents of change, reminding us of dormant potential; others keep us focused on our path and goals; some will guide and teach; and then there are those difference-makers who share our mission and remain in our hearts and lives forever.

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Business, News

Kenya Airways inks deal with Delta Air Lines to expand operations in U.S.

Kenya’s flag carrier airline Kenya Airways said Friday it has reached an agreement with American airline Delta Air Lines to activate its codeshare with Delta in the United States and Canada.

Kenya Airways chief executive officer Sebastian Mikosz said the partnership will enable both the business and leisure travelers to enjoy greater connectivity and efficiency in 11 U.S. cities and four Canadian cities.

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Business

Tunisia’s AfricInvest partners with Cathay Innovation launch $170 million fund to invest in African startups

By Zubair Naeem Paracha

Tunisian private equity firm AfricInvest that has $1.5 billion in assets under its management, is partnering with San Francisco-based Cathay Innovation, a global VC fund created by French PE firm Cathay Capital, to launch Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund, the two organization announced in a joint statement earlier this week.

The fund, with a projected size of about $170 million (€150 million) which could make it one of the largest VC funds in Africa, will invest in technology startups all across Africa.

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News

Kenyan families of Ethiopian Airline crash to sue Boeing

A U.S.-based attorney says eight Kenyan families of people who died in an Ethiopian Airlines crash last month will sue Boeing, the manufacturer of the plane, and the airline for compensation.

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Business, Movies

Netflix appoints Kenyan as manager International Originals
By Ivy Nyayieka

Global streaming giant Netflix has appointed Kenyan award-winning TV producer and Spielworks Media chief executive Dorothy Ghettuba as its manager for International Originals.

The move comes after global streaming giant Netflix announced last year that it would commission original shows from Africa by 2019.

This could increase demand for the platform among viewers from the region and eventually reduce the cost of access.

“Telling our African stories. Onwards and Upwards,” said Ms Ghettuba in an Instagram post announcing her appointment.

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News

Rwandan kids sue Boeing over death of parent in Ethiopian Airlines crash

A lawsuit against Boeing Co has been filed in a U.S. federal court in what appeared to be the first suit over a March 10 Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crash that killed 157 people.

The lawsuit was filed in Chicago federal court by the family of Jackson Musoni, a citizen of Rwanda, and alleges that Boeing, which manufactures the 737 MAX, had defectively designed the automated flight control system.

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Business, News

American company claims to have obtained license to grow marijuana in Kenya

An American company based in New York claims that it has obtained a license to cultivate marijuana in Kenya.

The company indicates that it intends to cultivate the product in large scale on a 500 acres piece of land.

Currently, marijuana remains an illegal product in the Kenya. GoIP Global Inc, however, communicated to its shareholders via a notice that it had secured a permit to grow the stimulant on a 500-acre plot in Kenya.

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Business

US firm partners with Ooni of Ife to bring water treatment solutions to Africa

US firm, AXEON Water Technologies, a world-leader in the engineering and manufacturing of water treatment solutions, has announced the appointment of ADEKHA, a firm co-owned by the Ooni of Ife, as an authorized distributor and strategic partner for the Middle East and African regions.

AXEON and ADEKHA will help provide economical solutions for solving the growing water quality challenges in the Middle East and Africa and alleviate the shortage of potable water through the latest membrane and filtration technologies.

His Imperial Majesty Ooni Adeyeye Enitan Babatunde Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, Ooni of Ife

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News

Ethiopian Airlines Hits Back at Washington Post over report

Ethiopian Airlines has hit back at the Washington Post, for stating that the pilot of the ill-fated flight had not practiced on a new simulator for the Boeing 737 MAX 8 that killed 157 people, among them 36 Kenyans.

“Ethiopian airline strongly refutes all the baseless and the factually incorrect allegations written by the Washington Post on March 21, 2019” part of the statement read.

Read the statement below

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Business, News

Bank of America Merrill Lynch warns of recession in South Africa over Eskom

By Colin McClelland

South Africa will face another recession by year’s end if the Eskom load shedding debacle isn’t remedied, according to forecasts by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

GDP growth will plummet by year’s end and signal a recession, which is two quarters of sub-zero growth, Michael Jacks, head of equity research in Johannesburg at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told reporters on March 20 in the city’s Rosebank area.

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News

Google apologises for Ghanaian cedi mistake

Google has apologised to Ghana’s finance ministry and central bank for displaying a wrong exchange rate for the Ghanaian currency, the cedi, on its currency converter.

On Friday, Google’s currency converter said it took 22 cedis to buy one US dollar, when the correct rate was four times less.

Google said in a letter to the ministry and bank that the error occurred because of a “minor glitch” but was “quickly fixed”.

Nigeria also suffered a similar fate last month.

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Business

Can Ethiopia’s Long Love Affair With Boeing Survive the 737 Max Crash?

By Selam Gebrekidan

Last week, a brand-new Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed shortly after takeoff in Ethiopia. Five months earlier, an identical Boeing model crashed in Indonesia. With investigators looking into the possibility that a design flaw played a role in both disasters, the company is in a harsh spotlight.

Like Boeing, Ethiopian Airlines has long been held in high regard. It maintains a young fleet, and it operates a respected aviation school.

The airline has been intertwined with Boeing for six decades. It was the first African airline to buy its jets, with a loan from the American government. And over the years, it has maintained such close ties with Boeing that it did not purchase planes from rival Airbus until three years ago.

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Business

Burger King restaurants keep losing money in South Africa – but a whole lot more are due to open anyway

By Phillip de Wet , Business Insider SA

Burger King outlets are losing it an increasing amount of money, the chain’s South African parent company Grand Parade Investments (GPI) said on Monday morning – but it is not backing down on plans to roll out a lot more of them.

A month ago GPI announced that it will liquidate Dunkin Donuts and the American ice cream brand Baskin Robbins in South Africa, after it could not make them profitable nor find a buyer interested in taking them over.

But things will be very different with Burger King. In interim results for the last half of 2018, GPI said it will roll out 15 new Burger King outlets every year for the next three years, which will increase its footprint by exactly half, to 135 stores.

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Business

Feds Investigate Oregon Company’s African Rainforest Hardwood Products

By and
Roseburg Forest Products, one of the country’s leading manufacturers of particleboard and plywood, has ended production and sales of certain lumber products in the midst of a federal investigation into whether the wood came from the illegal logging of African rainforests.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to OPB that its Homeland Security Investigations division has an ongoing investigation into illegal imports of okoumé, a wood used for plywood and veneer siding. The Lacey Act prohibits the trade of plants and wildlife taken, stored or transported illegally.

Okoumé hardwood trees grow in the rainforests of west-central Africa, where the deforestation of habitat for endangered species is drawing the concern of conservationists and scientists alike. Okoumé is used in some of Roseburg’s Real Wood Siding products, which are sold by major retailers including Home Depot and marketed as “environmentally friendly.”

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Business, Science and Tech.

Gray Matters Capital Selects Two African Start-Ups for its Digital Self-Learning to Earning Accelerator GMC Calibrator

Gray Matters Capital, a US-based impact investor focused on the funding for-profit social enterprises in markets of Africa, India, Latin America, USA and South East Asia, has announced the names of the start-ups which have made it to the second cohort of its GMC Calibrator Program.

The GMC Calibrator is a Digital Self-learning to Earning Accelerator launched by Gray Matters Capital in April 2018 with an aim to make the mobile phone a device to promote Self Learning to Earning by improving user engagement, monetization and optimization of mobile learning platforms. This is done by understanding and implementing the principles of behavioural science and data driven decision making.

The cohort of March 2019 of the program has two start-ups from Africa – Sierra Leone based Mobile Learning Platform for Financial Inclusion Mosabi and Kenya s leading Parenting Website Mums Village joining seven other start-ups from India and Vietnam.

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