Charles Wachira
5 October 2008
Dr Manu Chandaria has been lionised as East Africa's most respected chief executive officer of a company.
In the late 1960s, when the indigenes of the African continent were still tossing coins to decide how national resources would be apportioned, the patriarch of the Comcraft Group came across someone with foresight who advised him to seek a foothold beyond Kenyan borders for his family business.
"Our advisor, Sir Ernest Vasey, who served as a minister of finance in both Kenya and Tanzania before becoming the World Bank's resident representative in Pakistan, advised us as follows: 'You are supplying to the whole of the East African region, they have accepted your products, but with the advent of independence you should invest in other countries.
"'If not, you will lose market share, since someone else will start producing in those countries,'" reveals Chandaria.
With about 200 subsidiaries, the Comcraft Group, which specialises in producing steel and iron, is today found in over 40 countries spread across five continents.
The Kenyan media puts the corporation's net worth at $20 billion. But Chandaria chooses to live in a modest way.
The legendary rise of the Comcraft Group continues to embolden myriad Kenyan corporations to try to gain entry into the hallowed, enviable but difficult precincts of can-do-can-deal global corporate star performers.
For the past three years two Kenyan companies, the national carrier Kenya Airways and cellular phone provider Safaricom, have shared the coveted prize of the most respected company in East Africa in an annual jamboree.
According to Donald Ouma, manager of research and policy analysis at the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE), 15 companies out of the 49 that currently trade, have swopped their parochial status for international credentials by enmeshing themselves in foreign markets. The NSE is sub-Saharan Africa's sixth largest bourse in capitalisation terms.
Conspicuously among the 15 local multinationals only one, Diamond Trust Bank Ltd, has a woman, Nasim Devji, calling the shots as managing director and group executive officer.
The most recent foray into the region was by Nakumatt Holdings, which invested $3 million to acquire a foothold in Rwanda.
According to Thiagarajan Ramamurthy, Nakumatt operations director, the expansion fits in with the organisation's long-term strategy to open three and four branches in Uganda and Tanzania respectively and an additional one in Rwanda -- in addition to raising the Kenyan network to 30 from the current 19.
"We believe in growth and that local companies have the professional expertise and range of products to compete competitively, if not better than foreign organisations," Ramamurthy said.
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