5 Women-Led Companies Awarded Ksh1 Million Each
By Kenyans.co.ke Writer on
Kenyan Currency notes.
File
Five tech firms led by female entrepreneurs won the fourth cohort of the Women in Tech Incubator (WIT) Programme, a project by Standard Chartered Bank (StanChart) in partnership with
iBizAfrica-Strathmore University.
Ecila Films, Ufasiri Halisi SLI Innovations Limited, Viwanda Africa Group, Mandevu Beardcare and Runnovate were selected from a group of 10 participants shortlisted from 111 applicants.
Each of the companies was given Ksh1 million seed funding as part of the award.
The winners were selected on the basis of scalability technology adoption, entrepreneurial and leadership experience.
Four financial institutions, including Standard Chartered Bank (StanChart Bank), played a key role in the $650 million five-year bond issued by Seplat, a local energy firm listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
StanChart Bank acted as the global coordinator on the note priced at a yield and coupon of 7.75 per cent, a significant improvement over the 9.25 per cent coupon and initial yield of 9.50 per cent of Seplat’s debut corporate bond issued in 2018.
The transaction, regarded as the largest Nigerian oil and gas bond ever priced in international markets, was successfully executed in a challenging market backdrop demonstrating global investors’ confidence in Seplat and the lender’s deep knowledge of the oil and gas industry, access to diverse investor pool and strong relationships with the key stakeholders.
A reference to The Federal Bank as an “old private bank” always gets Shyam Srinivasan’s goat. “It implies the bank is not contemporary.” The managing director and chief executive officer of the Aluva (Kerala)-based bank stresses that “it is among the best”. Srinivasan walked into Federal in August 2010 from Standard Chartered Bank (StanChart), where he helmed its retail franchise. “The board was on the lookout for a person. Egon Zehnder contacted me. And I said, yes. That’s it.” This was a phase when an older vintage of private banks sought to set a new flight path. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), too, was keen that these banks were brought up to speed. It gave the nod to Srinivasan, and three others who answered to the same profile Vishwavir Ahuja of RBL (from Bank of America), Murali Natrajan of DCB Bank (StanChart), and P R Somasundaram of Karur Vysya Bank (StanChart-STCI Securities).
Standard Chartered Bank (StanChart) said the local economy will bounce back strongly in the second quarter this year by 15.7 percent, driven by consumption and public spending as the economy gradually reopens more in 2021.
StanChart’s Philippine-focused economist, Chidu Narayanan, said Friday he