On October 19, 2018, in Abidjan, Oragroup officially announced the IPO process for its listing on Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières (BRVM), WAEMU’s stock exchange.

Today October 25, the pan-African banking group step further in that perspective. Indeed, it will present the public offering of 13,883,006  shares in Lomé.

According to Binta Touré Ndoye, managing director of the group, this public offering comprises of the issuance of 6,097,561 new shares by the capital increase and the sale of 7,785,445 existing shares. The price of each share is XOF4,100.

The manager also expects that this operation will help boost the group’s growth and support its development.

The offered shares should generate XOF56.92 billion (€86 million), representing 20% of its capital. The remaining 80% will remain at the hand of the current shareholders.

This should be the most important IPO on the BRVM since it started operations in 1998.

Séna Akoda

The Nouvelle Société Cotonière du Togo (NSCT) just issued a tender for the supply of tire equipment for its rolling stock.

Fifteen enterprises led by young people and operating a wide range of activities will be able to submit their bid for this contract. They are Car Wash House, Christ Winner, Coudi Business, Doc Engine, Ets Allassane Amidou, Ets Yamba, Fredy et Sons Technologie, Garage Auto Nouvelle Technologie, Gnim & Frères, Happy Days and Fine Investment, IB & RAO Business, IBTC Sarlu, Keno Services, Megatram Sarl and Telemobil International.

The contract is divided into three lots. The first concerns the provision of tires and tire consumables. The second concerns the provision of pneumatic tires and the last the provision of tubeless tires.

Let’s note that NSCT’s announcement falls in line with a commitment of President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbé to set aside 20% of procurements for young entrepreneurs, men and women. 

Séna Akoda

To date, exactly 500,000 people are using the Ecobank Mobile app launched by the pan-African bank in Togo over a year ago.

Through this app that it launched in the 33 countries where it operates, Ecobank aims to boost bancarization rate and access to financial services across the continent. “Opening an account is safe and free with this app. There is no account maintenance fee required. You can check your balance and access account statements just like with a traditional account. You can also make payments to merchants and receive instant notifications for any payment made,” declared Ecobank-Togo’s managing director, Mamady Diakite. This was during the launch of a service to pay power bills for free, through the app.

In the same vein, Patrick Akinwuntan, executive director of Ecobank’s Consumer Banking division, said : “Ecobank has a lot of opportunities to offer to every African. Our Ecobank Mobile app, Xpress Account, Ecobank Pay, Xpress and Rapidtransfer points are becoming prefered banking services of users, in Africa and the diaspora, due to their flexibility, low costs and instant nature”.

Mobile banking, let’s recall, perfectly aligns with Ecobank’s expansion strategy and objective to substantially increase its customer portfolio by 2020.

Séna Akoda

On October 23, 2018, Togo’s Prime Minister gave an audience at his office to Abdou Dieng, World Food Programme’s (WFP) Director for West Africa.

Dieng came to relay his conclusions regarding the study related to the end of hunger (SDG 2), that will be released in the coming days. According to him, WFP is looking for ways to increase its support to school canteens in Togo.

In effect, the UN programme plans to boost its support to small producers to increase their yields and subsequently better supply the canteens with local products.

The creation of school canteens is financed by the Togolese government, as part of the Social nets and community development project (PDC+) with the support of WFP and the World Bank. In 2017-2018, the scheme helped provide 7,089,359 meals to 91,319 pupils, including 43,697 girls.

Let’s recall that every year, WFP distributes meals to about 22 million pupils across 60 countries.

Eranove has officially gotten license to build and operate the Kékéli Efficient Power thermal plant in Lomé’s port zone.

Related concession agreement was signed October 23, 2013, by Eranove’s CEO, Marc Alberola and Togo’s minister of mines and energy, Marc Dèdèriwè Ably-Bidamon.

Works will last 18 months for a total cost of CFA64 billion. While the required investment will be provided by BOAD and Oragroup, the works will be carried out by Spanish firm Grupo TSK (EPC).

Once built, the power plant will generate 65MW, using a combined cycle technology which helps produce more power with no additional gas consumption while reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

Eranove will develop, operate and maintain the plant at first but it will finally be run and managed by the Togolese government.

According to local authorities, the plant which will boost the country’s output will also help it “reach energy independence by 2030”.

The newly signed agreement is a major milestone in the framework of Eranove’s expansion. Indeed, the pan-African group already operates 1,247MW of power and develops projects that aim to add 1,000MW to the continent’ production capacity.

Octave A. Bruce

Deloitte wishes to help Togo implement its 2018-2022 national development plan. The firm’s manager for Africa, Brice Chasles, disclosed this to Togo’s Prime Minister, Komi Sélom Klassou, during an audience held on October 23, 2018.

Chasles said he discussed with the PM about various opportunities for cooperation in many economic sectors. The discussions focused mainly on finding ways to reinforce Togo’s position as business and logistics hub in the region.

The group also wishes to partner with Togo to find various ways to help the country grow. It wants in this framework to improve its business climate to attract more foreign investors.

Deloitte in the long run wants Togo to develop, both socially and economically, by developing strategic axes of the national development plan.

The firm currently provides services of audit, accounting, as well as financial, legal and fiscal consulting and operates mostly in the sectors of consumption, energy, industrial resources and products, public sector and financial services.

Séna Akoda

Launched last June 25th by Faure Gnassingbé, MIFA is one of the flagship projects of the national development plan. Here, Noël  Bataka, coordinator of MIFA’s value chains explains the ins-and-outs of this scheme.  

Togo First: From scratch, what is MIFA about?

Noël Bataka (NoB) : MIFA stands for Incentive Mechanism for Agricultural Financing. Established on a risk-sharing basis, it is a tool developed by the government to provide concrete solutions to challenges faced by agricultural value chains and their related actors. It aims to structure the market, and organize the various actors of these value chains, enabling them to get funds needed to supply quality products, in quantity, to the structured markets. MIFA provides structural solutions to risks and challenges that actors of agricultural value chains deal with in their activities, both agricultural and financial.

Togo First: How can a farmer or any other actor of the agricultural value chain benefit from MIFA?

NoB : There are four categories of actors. The first, aggregators include entities handling purchase, processing, consumption and commercialization of agricultural products, both in the country and outside. For any person falling under this category and in need of a specific commodity, such as rice, maize or cassava, you must submit the requested volume and technical specifications, then the mechanism will put you in contact with farmers.

Also, if you lack funds to purchase or process products but have solid contracts and guarantees for marketing, sales and supply, MIFA can help you secure these funds from banks.

Similarly, if you are a processor or logistics expert, the mechanism can support you as long as you have a solid contract. In this framework, you must be able to provide proofs of your market, as well as supply and transportation guarantees.

As for farmers, who belong to the third category, the MIFA helps them gather in united groupings, then in cooperatives with a more accurate assessment of their needs in input, labor, agricultural machinery and equipment. This is to help them produce higher quantity and quality goods that aggregators or a market might need. This sales contract is the starting point that the farmers organization needs to respond to demand.

Starting from that moment, farmers will identify service providers for their suppliers who form the fourth category. Input or service provision by the latter will then be directly paid with a loan secured from banks.

Alongside these four groups of actors are insurers. Insurers’ role is to provide a specific product to cover the risk of drought which the sector is currently dealing with. They also cover individual and health risks faced by farmers.

In addition to insurers, there are banks, obviously. Their role is to fund farmers and other actors of the agricultural value chains.

Togo First : … Concretely, what does this support involve ?

NoB : MIFA as I said earlier, finds buyers and market players, put them in contact with farmers and supports the whole chain with regard to loan access.

Moreover, the scheme provides technical support to farmers to help them take the most appropriate technical path towards improving their yields.

Finally, MIFA helps banks identify and characterize needs in the agricultural sector in order to develop the most innovative and appropriate financial products.

Togo First: Regarding financial products, what tools do you intend to develop to boost financing in the agricultural sector?

NoB : The government’s goal is to get banks to dedicate at least 5% of their loan portfolio to the agricultural sector. In 2017, banks and the decentralized financing system dedicated only 0.7% of this portfolio to the sector. To reverse this trend, the mechanism will back intermediaries so that they provide loans as efficiently as possible.

In this framework, an assessment, supported by the mechanism again, will be conducted. It’s a financing tackling specific needs identified by banks. Bankers will be funding business plans and not mere declarations.

Lastly, the financing mechanism operates in a loop, thus preventing misuse of funds. This way, the farmer, processor or logistician can only pay banks for the various purchases and services they invest in, and therefore has no room to use the funds for personal purposes.

Togo First: 100 billion. That’s the amount to be raised in the long term. How do you plan to secure this sum?

NoB : The hundred billion actually is a starting fund. What does this mean in actual fact? It means the State and its partners will create a common basket where both private and public funds will be collected. These resources will help banks, through a lever effect, finance themselves and agriculture via 5%-10% multiplier effects. Providing €100 million (CFA65 billion), as announced by the President on April 27, will push banks to inject up to €1 billion (CFA650 billion) of their own funds, in agriculture, over 10 years.

Togo First: How will the MIFA contribute to the implementation of the national development plan (PND)?

NoB : The second axis of Togo’s national development plan focuses on investments dedicated to processing in the agricultural and manufacturing sectors.

Under this second axis, amongst major projects, there is the creation of agropoles and the MIFA. Our objective is to ensure that the mechanism facilitates access to loans and financing for actors of the agricultural value chains in order to develop manufacturing, production and processing firms through agropoles.

MIFA is a facility created by the State for private economic operators to develop agricultural value chains, as projected under the second axis of the PND.

Togo First: After the pilot stage which focuses on the sectors of rice, maize and cassava, what are the next steps?

NoB: To master the approach and stabilize tools (since the mechanism operates based on contracts and other instruments), starting off with a simple phase is obvious. That is why the pilot stage focuses on only three sectors, knowingly: maize, rice and cassava.

After stabilizing the pilot phase, the mechanism will be expanded to seven other sectors. In crop production, we target sectors like cereals, tubers, roots, oleaginous, legumes. We will also focus on poultry, husbandry, fishery, and most importantly what will generate foreign exchange and help improve our trade balance.

Starting from 2019, the mechanism will focus on growing cash crops like pineapples, coffee, cocoa, cotton, soybeans and cashew.     

Interview by Fiacre E. Kakpo

Harmonies Media Group (HMG), leading media service in French-speaking Africa, just announced it has entered a partnership with US data collection giant GeoPoll. Under the partnership, the US firm will help HMG get data related to TV and radio audiences on a daily basis.

While the deal will first be implemented in Ivory Coast, it will be expanded to other French-speaking African countries, such as Senegal, Benin, Congo and Togo, starting in Q1 2019.

In detail, HMG will use data provided by GeoPoll to better target audiences and rapidly assess how efficient media campaigns are. This would help customers save a lot on ad spaces while ensuring that they reach the desired audience.

Data collection method used by GeoPoll helps save time and stand out from traditional means.

“We searched for tools that are adapted to our region and help us produce value to our customers, learn from media campaigns we launch and have access to opportunities present in our profession”, said Sidikou Karimou, CEO of HMG which operates in 15 African countries.

“This is now possible with our engagement at HMG and our unique partnership with GeoPoll”, he added.  

Through this move, HMG, which is affiliated to Omnicom Media Group, based in New York, aims to boost its customers’ return on ad spots purchased and for a better marketing.

Octave A. Bruce

Togo could have its first sugar factory in 2020. This was disclosed by the head of the country’s Agricultural Research Institute (ITRA), Dr. Bonfoh Bèdibètè, in an interview with agridigitale.net.

“Two years ago, President Faure Gnassingbé instructed us to build by 2020 a sugar factory in the Oti plain”, he said. However, “sugar cane grown in Togo cannot be used to produce sugar”, according to Dr. Bèdibètè who added that the actual challenge is to “identify the best sugar cane varieties to produce quality sugar”.

In this regard, he revealed that various financings were secured and used to purchase “43 varieties of sugar cane from Thailand, USA, etc.”. “Among these 43 varieties, we, following experimentation, identified 10 that are very efficient and able to produce a lot of sugar. We have been conducting this experiment for a year now”, ITRA’s head declared.

“We will continue experimenting on the ten selected varieties to find the best two or three to achieve a very good production in the Oti valley,” he added.

Tests are ongoing at the experimentation field, in Sadori (Northern Togo), and expected results should help develop a 20,000 ha top quality sugar cane plantation. If everything goes according to schedule, Togo should have its first sugar factory by 2020, in the Savanes region.  

Séna Akoda