As the conversation on
the impact of digitalization across various industries take centre stage
at business and intellectual gatherings globally, digital-age law firms
like Duale Ovia and Alex-Adedipe (DOA) and a few other TMT experts are
at the forefront of driving the discourse across the globe.
The
duo of Adeniyi Duale and Leke Alex-Adedipe were spotted recently in
London at the eighth TMT Finance Africa 2017, alongside more than 50
Corporate executives from Africa’s largest TMT companies including MTN,
Orange, Liquid Telecom, Millicom, American Tower Corp, Jumiah, Airtel
Africa, SEACOM and Helios Investment Partners, to discuss investment and
growth strategies for Africa’s TMT (Technology Media and Telecom)
sector.
Discussing opportunities for investment into
vertical services, key actors in TMT examined the huge potential in
areas such as B2B services, payments and financial services, and ‘owning
as much of the wallet as possible’. Areas around media, content
delivery and digital services were also noted as key areas of focus.
DOA
partner, Adeleke Alex-Adedipe, who chaired the Enterprise Cloud &
Datacentres Panel at the event, disclosed that Africa was the new
frontier for data centres and cloud services investments despite its regulatory, financial and economic challenges.
Taking
a critical look at the development of the data centre market in Africa,
other panel members which include, Ayotunde Coker, Managing Director,
Rack Centre; Michael Tobin OBE, an Industry Entrepreneur; Amine Kandil,
CEO & Founder of N+ONE Datacenters and Ranjith Cherickel, CEO &
Founder of icolo.io. discussed issues traversing data centre operators,
investors and service providers.
The
considered opportunities for investment across Africa; the development
of data centre market in Africa; finance available for building and
expansion; the most appropriate data centre models for the region; as
well as the growth of cloud-based services and how it impacts demand and
Investment strategies for greenfield projects and developing markets.
It
was noted that whilst South Africa appears to be experiencing some
investment in this regards, Nigeria would be the next stop despite the
obvious challenges.
“There is
massive room for investment in Africa and equally huge opportunities for
existing data centres across Africa,” Panelists agreed.
On
core telco operations, most CxOs present at the conference were
convinced that there would be more mergers across Africa, as operators
focus on rationalizing and strengthening existing businesses. “Tower
operators on the other hand could either consolidate or look to the bond
or equity markets to fund the next phase of growth,” they adviced.
In
the same vein, investors were confident about the market. “The debt and
equity markets are open for the right opportunities and larger blue
chip private equity backers and funds are starting to get more
comfortable in certain sectors,” we are told, and despite significant
evidence of innovation and entrepreneurialism, challenges remain for
earlier stage funding, with a limited but increasing supply of investors
available.
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