BusinessDay 17 Aug 2017

BUSINESS DAY
21
Thursday 17 August 2017
BDLegalBusiness
C002D5556
Research Intelligence Practice Management Industry Report Partnerships
INSIDE
Lawpavilion concludes
plans to
celebrate 120 SANs
Pg 22
Pioneer Status
and the ‘First
Year Rule’
Pg 23
Why over 44,000
companies were
delisted from CAC
database
Pg 22
Appeal to proceed in
£14bn
landmark Mastercard
Pg24
Digitalisation: Nigeria, next stop
for data centre investments -DOA
Says massive opportunities for existing data centres across Africa
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.