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Despite affiliation to RPF, Crystal Ventures still competes fairly -Kayonga

Saturday June 28 2014
RWAOsee3

Security firm Intersec is one of the businesses owned by Crystal Ventures Ltd. Inset: Jack Kayonga, chairman Crystal Ventures Ltd. Photo/Cyril Ndegeya

In an exclusive interview with Rwanda Today’s Berna Namata, Crystal Ventures Ltd chairman Jack Kayonga gives an insight into the company’s new business strategy.

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There is conflicting information about the ownership of CVL, its source of funding and its investment philosophy. Please clarify this information?

Crystal Ventures is a locally registered company, wholly owned by Rwandans. Sources of funding are our shareholder’s equity, revenues from our operations and financing from local and global financial institutions.

Our investment philosophy is to invest in unexplored high risk areas that yield high returns but that present opportunity for significant social-economic spillovers. We directly employ more than 10,000 employees.

Our investment horizon ranges between 5-15 years or until when a specific sector has matured and there is a favourable exit option.

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Since its inception, how have the operational objectives of CVL changed in the past 20 years?

They have changed in tandem with the overall ones of the Rwandan economy and the specific sectors where we operate. Most of the companies were started as monopolies with the objective of kick-starting the country’s private sector after the 1994 Genocide.

Twenty years later, we now operate in a more competitive local and regional business environment. We thrive on innovation, technology and attracting and retaining the best talent to stay ahead of our competitors.

What has informed the recent restructuring of CVL’s management, branding, and so on?

The recent changes both in management and branding are in line with the overall strategic objective of improving efficiency and repositioning our brands to be competitive locally and internationally.

READ: Crystal Ventures staff to lose jobs

CVL is alleged to get special favours from the government because it is affiliated to the ruling RPF. How do you view these allegations?

We find the allegations biased and uninformed, CVL runs under proper corporate governance structures and is run as a purely private company without any interference or favour from the government.

We compete fairly with other private and public companies for tenders. We are not the industry leaders in all the sectors we operate in and we have at times lost government tenders to our competitors.

What are some of the key challenges you have had to overcome?

We have had issues in raising required funds from local banks, but with the entry of foreign banks, which have bigger financial muscle and recapitalisation of local banks, this has been overcome.

We have carries out customer awareness projects in some of the sectors we are involved in to create demand. Another challenge was finding skilled staff and for some time we had to rely on regional and international expatriates.

The Rwandan economy is increasingly transitioning from using the state conglomerate as a tool for de-risking business sectors, and more towards an open market. Has Crystal Ventures considered sourcing funding from the open market?

Like any business, we are monitoring the performance of the Rwanda Stock Exchange and at the right time, we will consider going public.

For a long time now, there has been talk about CVL listing shares on the Rwanda Stock Exchange, when and how is this likely to happen?

We cannot rule out the listing of Crystal Ventures at the Rwanda bourse in the future, but it’s not part of our short term plan. We will assess all the options when the time comes for listing and choose an option that makes good business and economic sense.

There has been talk about plans to sell a stake of Inyange Industries to Kenya’s Brookside company. How far have you gone with the negotiations?

We are engaged in discussions with different potential strategic investors in our subsidiaries including Inyange and we do not want to discuss ongoing transactions. Information will be shared once the negotiations are concluded.

READ: Kenyan firm in Inyange takeover talks

Looking ahead, what new sectors is CVL considering for investment?

We have a team of dedicated analysts who monitor the local market to identify attractive sectors for investments either as green fields, acquisitions or joint ventures with local and foreign partners. We don’t focus on particular sectors.