Paratus Secures N$600M in Mega-Raise☕ - Issue #14

Paratus Secures N$600M in Mega-Raise☕ - Issue #14

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It has been an exciting week on many fronts and we made sure to bring you some of that excitement in today’s Weekender Brew.

Strap in and keep reading!

BUSINESS

NamRA's Tax Haul is Seriously Impressive

NamRA just dropped some big numbers for the 2023/2024 fiscal year—and they're eye-popping.

The agency raked in a whopping N$86.9 billion in revenue, blowing past their target of N$71.1 billion by a staggering 107.6%. After paying out N$10.4 billion in tax refunds, NamRA netted N$76.5 billion.

NamRA's Commissioner Sam Shivute was understandably pumped, calling the figures a "significant contribution" to Namibia's economic fabric.

The biggest tax contributors were:

• International trade: N$25.76 billion (34%)

• Individual income tax: N$18.19 billion (24%)

• VAT: N$17.36 billion (23%)

• Corporate income tax: N$11 billion (14%)

But NamRA hasn't just been exceptional at collecting taxes—they've also been busy streamlining cross-border trade. The agency is working with Botswana on developing a "One Stop Border Post" at the Trans Kalahari-Mamuno crossing to smooth out those processes.

On top of all that, NamRA has extended their Strategic Plan for the next two fiscal years, with nine new objectives focused on operational efficiency, taxpayer compliance, and legitimate trade facilitation.

All in all, it's been a killer year for Namibia's tax agency with revenue numbers through the roof and some ambitious streamlining initiatives in the pipeline. NamRA is clearly crushing it on multiple fronts.

Source: The Brief

Letshego and Ongos Valley Team Up for Affordable Housing

A new power couple has emerged in Namibia's affordable housing scene. Letshego Bank and Ongos Valley just announced a partnership aimed at tackling one of the country's biggest challenges – putting roofs over people's heads without emptying their wallets.

On one side, you've got Letshego bringing the financial muscle. The bank will offer specialized financing solutions for low- to middle-income Namibians looking to become homeowners. We're talking long-term loans ranging from 5 to 30 years and even debt consolidation options to ease the burden.

Letshego's CEO Ester Kali is pumped, saying the partnership perfectly aligns with the bank's goals of inclusive financing. "We're not just providing affordable housing, we're building a future together," she stated.

On the other side is Ongos Valley, the development crew constructing these affordable digs. Their chairman Reagan Graig emphasized the human element, noting the project aims to "elevate human dignity" through homeownership.

Ongos Valley's portion of Farm Ongos spans a massive 1,750 hectares just 13 km from Windhoek's city center. The grand plan is to erect 28,000 housing units over 5 phases in the next 20 years. But it's not just houses - there will also be schools, shopping malls, a hospital, and other key infrastructure.

The first phase alone will see 4,500 affordable units go up. And they've already upgraded a major road leading to the development at a cool N$381 million.

The Bottomline: With financing covered by Letshego and the actual construction handled by Ongos Valley, this dynamic duo could help make the dream of homeownership an achievable reality for many Namibians. An affordable roof over your head? Now that's a power move.

Source: The Brief

Namport Crushes Cargo Record

Namibia's ports just had one for the record books. The Namibian Ports Authority (Namport) reported handling a whopping 8 million tonnes of cargo in the fiscal year ending March 31st. That's a solid 4% increase from the previous year's 7.7 million tonnes.

So what exactly was fueling all that activity? According to Namport, exports were the key revenue driver, including zinc/lead concentrate, frozen fish, copper concentrate, salt, and more. Specifically:

• Bulk salt exports up 10%

• Copper concentrate exports up 12%

• Salt bagging exports up 1%

• Frozen fish exports up 29%

• Manganese ore exports up 15.7%

• Zinc/lead concentrate exports up 2.9%

• Marble exports up 41%

But it wasn't just the outgoing cargo flexing - imports saw some serious gains too. Petroleum led the charge with a staggering 26% spike, while steel, ammonium nitrate, wheat, ship spares, and copper concentrate imports all increased significantly as well. Overall, imported goods rose by 7.9% year-over-year.

The high volumes translated to a 29% jump in the number of vessels docking at Namibian ports, climbing from 1,636 to 2,115 calls in the last fiscal year across various categories like dry bulk, containers, petroleum, and more.

Namport's maintenance and repair facilities were booming too, with Syncrolift occupancy shooting up and maintenance jetty occupancy hitting 96%.

Capitalizing on all this activity, Namport emphasized strengthening ties with key groups like the Walvis Bay Corridor, shipping lines, cargo owners, government organisations, and others in the wider port community.

Clearly, Namibia's ports were absolutely firing on all cylinders over the past year. With record-smashing cargo totals and booming vessel traffic, Namport is riding some major economic waves right now.

Source: The Namibian

TransNamib to launch new pricing strategy

The national railway operator TransNamib is switching up how it charges for train trips. The company just launched a new "TransEvaRail Pricing Strategy Project" aimed at supercharging its money-making abilities.

The goal? Use some fancy data analysis and industry knowhow to optimize TransNamib's pricing system over the next three months. By recalibrating its rates, the rail carrier hopes to sharpen its competitive edge and stabilize its commercial performance in line with its 2022-2027 strategic roadmap.

TransNamib's business development manager Namvula Ankama emphasized just how crucial sustainable pricing is for the company's future success and growth. She called stakeholder involvement in the project "crucial" for driving "constructive transformation" in how TransNamib prices its services.

To get the ball rolling, TransNamib hosted a workshop in Windhoek this week to gather key players and crowdsource insights to spur innovative pricing solutions. The company is tapping the brainpower of insiders to retool a pricing model seemingly in need of an overhaul.

The end goal? Have a revamped rate card that maximizes TransNamib's revenue streams while keeping it a sharp competitor against other transit options. No more leaving money on the table with suboptimal prices.

For the state-run rail operator, it's out with the old pricing playbook and in with a data-driven, commercial mindset aimed at juicing those profit margins. Just call it putting some new economic logic into those locomotive logistics.

Source: The Namibian

TECH

Paratus Namibia Just Raised over N$600 million

The telecoms company Paratus Namibia Holdings Limited just hit the jackpot, raising over N$600 million (around $36 million) from investors. That's a massive influx of funds that has effectively doubled the company's market cap on the Namibian Stock Exchange.

So where did all this money come from? Paratus itself contributed the lion's share at 61.9%, with institutional investors kicking in 34%, employees chipping in 2.6%, and regular retail investors making up the remaining 1.5%.

But Paratus didn't just raise all this cash for fun—the company has big plans to use the money to upgrade its systems and infrastructure. Specifically, they want to expand their offerings by:

• Becoming the connectivity leader through investing in fiber and mobile tech

• Differentiating themselves as the go-to digital partner for businesses

• Optimizing efficiencies through tech like AI and machine learning

The CEO of the Paratus Group, Schalk Erasmus, is hyped about the investment, calling it a "significant milestone" that will give them an edge in the market. He's promising top-notch customer service by using cutting-edge tech to monitor and optimize the entire customer experience.

In other words, Paratus just got a massive cash injection to help them go big in the world of telecoms and digital services. With that kind of money in the bank, they're setting themselves up to be a major player in the Namibian market.

Source: The Brief

Flutterwave Hit With Another Massive Hack

The cybersecurity woes just keep piling up for fintech unicorn Flutterwave. The African payments giant has been stung by another major security breach, with a staggering 11-20 billion naira (around $7-13.5 million) illegally siphoned out to various bank accounts by unknown hackers.

The big crypto heist went down in April, barely a month after Flutterwave secured a court order to recover $24 million lost in an earlier unauthorized POS transactions fiasco back in October 2023.

Talk about adding insult to injury.

According to inside sources, the cybercriminals managed to divert the billions to multiple accounts across 5 different banks over 4 days. Their sneaky tactic? Keeping the transfers below certain thresholds to avoid tripping any fraud alarms.

But shady security lapses are nothing new for Flutterwave. In February 2023, hackers made off with over 2.9 billion naira from their accounts. And that $24 million October 2023 incident involved around 6,000 account holders getting hit with illegal POS transfers across 35 banks.

So what's Flutterwave's take? Well, they acknowledged some "unauthorized activities" on one of their platforms but insisted no customer funds were compromised and data stayed locked down.

However, a highly-placed source claims the opposite - that the heisted funds were very much customer money routed through Flutterwave systems.

The incident has been reported to law enforcement for investigation. Some banks have even temporarily frozen the affected accounts after Flutterwave requested their KYC details in an attempt to trace the money trail.

For a fintech handling massive payment volumes, these recurring breaches are an absolute nightmare - exposing potential vulnerabilities that cybercriminals seem to be exploiting at will.

If the leaks keep springing, customers may start taking their business elsewhere to avoid getting their money siphoned. Flutterwave has some serious shoring up to do on the cybersecurity front before their system springs another multi-million dollar leak.

Source: Business Insider Africa

TikTok is testing hour-long videos

The app that revolutionized short-form video is now experimenting with clips that are...not so short. TikTok has confirmed it's testing hour-long videos with certain users, taking its maximum video length from snacky to full meal deal.

For context, TikTok has been stretching those video limits for a while now. Back in January, some creators got access to 30-minute uploads. And as of now, the standard max is a not-too-shabby 10 minutes for regular users, with paid subscription creators allowed up to 20 minutes.

But 60 minutes? That's getting into YouTube terrain.

The head-scratching move comes as TikTok has been not-so-subtly incentivizing longer videos over its pioneering short-form vertical clips. Creators were recently notified that horizontal videos would get a "boost" on the feed. The app's monetization program also now requires videos be over 1 minute to qualify.

It seems TikTok is embracing an identity shift from pioneer of short-attention-span content to a true YouTube rival offering every video format under the sun. The platform has been leaning into livestreaming big events and doubling down on longform content.

While TikTok kicked off the vertical video revolution that swept social media, now every other app is trying to replicate its famous For You feed with their own short-form video experiences. So TikTok is zagging while everyone else zigs, carving a niche in longer, Livestream-able, horizontal video.

The Bottomline: The hourlong upload test may be limited for now, but it shows TikTok wants to be a one-stop video shop. No content format left behind, not even QVC-length vids. Turns out the app's mission was video ubiquity all along, not just three-minute dance clips.

Source: The Verge

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Quote of the Week

"True self-discovery begins where your comfort zone ends." - Nelson Mandela

Thanks for sticking with us until the end.

Happy Weekend!🧡4