On September 28, 2018, I will run a workshop during Disruptive Africa. I will also deliver a presentation during the Conference and play a role in the Award Night. To connect, meet me and participate in these events, you would need to register. https://disruptiveafricaexpo.com/product/innovation-growth-workshop/

This is a mass-version of my popular Innovation for Growth Workshop. It has been designed to provide a way to support those who cannot afford to hire my Practice single-handedly.

David Alozie and his team run every aspect of this event. My role is to bring my team to lead the workshop. It was his idea to provide this level of support to the community. And it makes me feel better that we can help.

He has been making progress and today he is offering further discount to anyone that registers in coming days. Visit Disruptive Africa and use this code “Followers” to get more discount as you register.

We are not being paid for this: it is a way to support the community. In short, I am personally subsidizing for students who register. Yet, Disruptive Africa has to cover its bills. So, it cannot be free. Hope you would be interested.

In a farming conference last year, one researcher made a strong case: the world’s food problem is not necessarily lack of food production but the economics of food. He went on to explain how some extremely rich countries throw away food into oceans just to ensure prices do not fall below some levels.

There is a policy element to it: if you do not buy-out excess capacity and waste them, you may be forced to pay farmers compensations if they sell below “certain” prices due to overcapacity. Yes, it is far cheaper to spend say $200 million to buy the food and waste them to keep price within threshold instead of spending $1 billion on compensations. Devilishly, that becomes a policy which must be pursued in a world where many are dying of starvation.

So, when I read that Burberry, the fashionista brand, wasted unsold clothes, perfumes, etc worth $37 million by burning them, I went speechless. Check, the CEO of that company is preaching the sermon of business: we do well to society through our products and services. Apparently, burning excess capacity instead of donating them will not be service since it would possibly “dilute the brand”.

The fashion brand Burberry is to stop burning its unsold goods, following an environmentalist backlash to the news that it destroyed unsold clothes, accessories and perfume to the tune of $37 million last year (Fortune Newsletter)

British luxury goods maker Burberry has announced that it will stop the practice of burning unsold goods, with immediate effect. The fashion label also said it would stop using real fur in its products, and would phase out existing fur items. In July, an earnings report revealed that Burberry destroyed unsold clothes, accessories and perfume worth £28.6m in 2017 to protect its brand.(BBC)

No one knows how much Zinox Group bought Konga for sure. But from the latest Naspers’ financial statement, there is clarity on that. Naspers made two investments in Konga: $41 million and $13.5 million totaling $54.5 million. In the financial statement, the company noted the following “…disposed of its investment in its joint venture Konga Online Shopping Limited. A loss on disposal of US$38m,…”

During February 2018 the group disposed of its investment in its joint venture Konga Online Shopping Limited. A loss on disposal of US$38m, representing the reclassification of the group’s foreign currency translation reserve from other comprehensive income to the income statement, has been recognised in “(Losses)/gains on acquisitions and disposals”.

Without adjusting for currency fluctuation since Naspers reported its numbers in U.S. dollars, we can say the company received $16.5 million on pure cash basis: $54.5 million – $38 million. From the financial statement, Naspers held about 50.9% of Konga before the disposal. From that, we can calculate how much Konga was sold, and that number is $32.4 million [$16.5M*100/50.9]. So, the maximum possible amount Konga was sold was $32.4 million based on pure cash play from Naspers’ documents.

The key sentence is thus: “Our mid-term goal would see to the establishment of more stores across Nigeria”. Yes, the new Konga would be opening physical stores across Nigeria. Certainly, that is a great winning business model. Besides the money being in the physical space, having stores will reduce the marginal cost challenges associated with pure play ecommerce. The piece quoted me as it argued the brilliance of pursuing this hybrid commerce for Konga.

The number was possibly less than $32.4 million as Naspers could have received preferential and preferred stock as it invested late as a majority investor. I wrote this after reading this which postulated that Konga was sold for $230 million. That is certainly not possible: Zinox would not do such a deal and Konga could not been sold that much.

The old Konga raised about $108 million but struggled with the typical long gestation period of turning profits in ecommerce operations. The core investors gave up!

Imagine if this money had been used to build physical stores in major ten Nigerian cities [Shoprite style], Konga might be a unicorn now. Digital is the future, but we need to thrive today also. And as we move to the web, everyone needs to know that Nigeria has no modern supermarket chain (excluding Shoprite). That may be the opportunity now before the fancy of ecommerce.