Financial Times (FT) has unveiled its inaugural annual ranking of Africa’s Fastest-Growing Companies, as Twenty-one companies in Nigeria are making their entrepreneurial endeavours count against all odds.
According to the FT ranking, Nigeria has the second-highest successful companies after South Africa with 24 companies while Kenya came third with nine companies. This was covered during the period between 2017 and 2020 while taking the COVID-19 pandemic into consideration and highlighting the companies that successfully adapted to the resultant challenges.
The successful companies were ranked based on their compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in revenue between 2017 and 2020, as demanded by the FT and research company Statista with the criteria that the revenue generated by the firm must be at least $100,000 in 2017, the revenue of at least $1.5 million in 2020 which must be organic, the company must be headquartered in one of the African countries, and it is not a subsidiary or branch office of any kind.
The successful Nigerian companies on the list are are AFEX Commodities Exchange, Zedcrest Group, Starsight Energy, Kawai Technologies, West African Soy Industries Limited, Commercio Partners, and Northern Nigerian Flour Mills (NNFM), Alpha Morgan Capital Managers, WACOT Rice, Field Intelligence, and Tripple Gee & Company.
Other include FoodCo Nigeria, Global Accelerex, Prestige Assurance, Julius Berger Nigeria, Genesis Food Nigeria, Courteville Business Solutions, RT Briscoe Nigeria, Mutual Benefits Assurance, United Capital, and HIS Netherlands Holdco BV.
Commenting on this recognition Ayodeji Balogun, CEO at AFEX Commodities said, “It is a significant accomplishment and this recognises the work we have been doing over the past eight years. Although the global pandemic has proved challenging over the past two years, we’ve worked extremely hard to improve Africa’s commodity market,”
Further findings showed AFEX Commodities topped the Nigerian list, posting 4,289.7 percent average growth between 2017 and 2020, and ranked third in Africa. Zedcrest Group, a firm whose growth has been spurred by innovation in the nation’s financial services, was ranked second in Nigeria and fifth in Africa with 1,481.7 percent growth.
“It’s an honour to be ranked on the inaugural FT Africa’s Fastest-Growing Companies list,” said Adedayo Amzat, Group Managing Director at Zedcrest Group. “It is a direct reflection of the leadership team we have in place, and I couldn’t be more proud of our team. We’ve been fortunate to extend our business across different verticals of the financial sector over the past few years and we’ll continue to evaluate opportunities in other markets as part of our future growth strategy.”
Announcing the list of the successful African companies, FT said: “From digitising informal trade to fintech and mining, the inaugural list reflects trends on the continent.”
It said following the application phase, Statista examined the officially stated revenue data of about 900 companies in Africa, adding that high-profile companies that met the criteria for inclusion were added to the list as the data were collected through research using official sources, such as publicly available earning presentations, investor relations websites, or annual reports.
According to the FT, the inaugural annual ranking of Africa’s fastest-growing companies provides a snapshot of the corporate landscape in a continent where technology and support-service businesses have had to adapt to a radically altered environment.