← Good Bad Billionaire
Good Bad Billionaire
Strive Masiyiwa: Connecting a continent
00:42:00
Telecoms magnate Strive Masiyiwa escaped kidnap to become Zimbabwe’s first billionaire
Loading summary
Transcript162 lines
- [00:00]
Simon Jack
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
- [00:06]
Brex Ad
This goes out to all you finance folks. You're under a lot of pressure to save money, but the best finance leaders focus on more than that. Brex knows you want to drive growth, change the game and win. So that's exactly what Brex will help you do. Brex offers the world's smartest corporate card banking, expense management and travel all on one AI powered platform. Are you ready to unlock your peak performance? Join the 30,000 companies making every dollar count with Brex@brex.com grow. This episode is supported by Brex. Brex helps finance teams unlock their peak performance with the world's smartest corporate card banking, expense management and Travel all on one AI powered platform. See why 30,000 companies across every stage of growth use Brex@brex.com grow.
- [00:53]
Simon Jack
We're in the Zimbabwean capital Harare. The year is 1990. A man is on his knees and he's doing something he hasn't done since he was a boy. He's praying. He's a successful businessman and he's rich. By the standards of his country and the time, he's very rich. And that wealth has made him a target. Just hours earlier, he was visiting an embassy in the city centre, talking up the international prospects of his company. Now he has no idea where he is. He had decided to return to his office on foot rather than be driven as usual. And as he'd walked down the wide streets, a vehicle had followed slowly behind him. He'd paid it no attention. He was immersed in his next big idea. Only when two men rushed out, pointed guns at him and dragged him into the van did he realize he was being kidnapped. Now he's desperate, tears filling his eyes. He's doing the only thing he can think of, praying to God to be set free.
- [01:54]
Singh Singh
Welcome to Good Bad Billionaire from the BBC World Service. Each episode we pick a billionaire and we find out how they made their money.
- [02:01]
Simon Jack
Then we judge them. Are they good, bad, or just another billionaire?
- [02:05]
Singh Singh
My name is Singh Singh and I'm a journalist, author and podcaster.
- [02:08]
Simon Jack
And my name is Simon Jack and I'm the BBC's business editor.
- [02:11]
Singh Singh
And on this episode, we have a kidnap victim billionaire. His name is Strive Masiwa.
- [02:17]
Simon Jack
Zimbabwe's first billionaire made a fortune providing cell phone Internet services to countries across Africa and beyond.
- [02:25]
Singh Singh
And his companies have laid over 100,000 kilometers of cables. He provides Internet for over 10,000 businesses and over $38 billion worth of transactions have been made with his mobile money wallet.
- [02:38]
Simon Jack
He's been called a rebel, a maverick, a and amusingly so cantankerous that if he were trapped in a bottle he would pick a fight with himself before working out how to escape the bottle.
- [02:48]
Singh Singh
He had some major battles in his career, not least with former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, as we'll find out.
- [02:55]
Simon Jack
And I love these episodes where the context is all important. Their story mirrors, reflects, informs the period of the time. You know, we've seen some of those. There's a sweep of history is behind it and a lot of people may not know his name, but they'll remember this period.
- [03:12]
Singh Singh
They certainly will. Let's go back to the very start and we'll take strive Masaiwa from zero to his first million. Strive was born in 1961 on the outskirts of Harare, the capital of modern day Zimbabwe. But back then it was called Salisbury and Zimbabwe was called Southern Rhodesia. And to understand Strive's story, we need to understand a little bit about this incredible period of, of chaos and turmoil that gripped his homeland as he was growing up.
- [03:43]
Simon Jack
Yes, this was the period of decolonization across the African continent. The European powers who had carved Africa into colonies, the famous scramble for Africa back in the 19th century, they stole resources, ruled from afar, they were finally withdrawing or being kicked out. Each African nation had its own particular path to statehood and Zimbabwe was one of the most complicated.
- [04:05]
Singh Singh
When Strive was born, he was born into what was called a self governing British colony. So basically it had a whites only minority government with British backing. But when the British began instigating majority rule in their colonies and granting them independence, that white minority refused and clung on to power. And in 1965 they unilaterally declared independence as Rhodesia, severing ties with the UK as civil war broke out across the whole country.
- [04:33]
Simon Jack
This is an incredibly tumultuous time. Opposition leaders were being imprisoned, militants were setting up bases in neighbouring countries, launching attacks back into Zimbabwe. And Strive's parents had closed ties to that revolutionary movement. So when he was just three years old, they fled north to Zambia. Initially, Strive didn't go with them. He instead remained to be looked after by his grandmother.
- [04:54]
Singh Singh
Four years later though, he did join his parents in Zambia. But the increasingly brutal civil war at home would continue for the rest of his childhood. And actually Zimbabwe only really became an internationally recognized state in 1980, the same year that Robert Mugabe, one of the revolution's leaders, was elected as Prime Minister. Now Mugabe would go on to become president and would rule right up until 2017. So he is a huge Figure, towering figure in Zimbabwean history. And he also plays a pretty big part in Strive Masiiwa's story two, as we'll see.
- [05:27]
Simon Jack
But during his childhood, Strive Masiiwa was learning to work cutting his teeth on business. He says his mother, Edith, who was an entrepreneur herself, named him Strive because she wanted him to try harder, everything. And she set him up in what he calls his first business when he was just a little kid. When he asked her for pocket money, she gave him some chewing gum to sell instead, saying, you sell that, bring me the money and I'll give you another one to sell or have yourself.
- [05:54]
Singh Singh
I mean, it's very reminiscent of some of our other billionaires. Didn't Warren Buffett also flog stuff when he was a kid?
- [05:59]
Simon Jack
Exactly.
- [06:00]
Singh Singh
So meanwhile, while Strive was busy selling chewing gum, his dad worked in the Zambian mining industry. And the family actually became rich enough to pack him off to boarding school in Scotland when he was 12. Now this might sound a bit random, but it makes sense. Masiwa's Scottish neighbors in Zambia had actually recommended the school as it was where they'd sent their own son. And it also had lots of children with parents working for the UK Foreign Office abroad or in the army, as well as many children from Hong Kong and Africa. But you can kind of imagine this would have come as a culture shock for Strive.
- [06:32]
Simon Jack
Yeah. And sure enough, Masaiiwa hated it. It was bitterly cold, he was made to wear a kilt on Sundays and he recalls looking at the other boy's bare legs and thinking, this is it, I'm dead.
- [06:44]
Singh Singh
Maybe not the first and only time someone's thought that while wearing a kilt in cold Scottish weather.
- [06:49]
Simon Jack
Yes.
- [06:49]
Singh Singh
So when Strive finished his O level exams, which would have been about when he was 16, he eagerly returned to Zambia, hoping to fight in the war for Zimbabwe's independence. But by then the war was nearly over and a cousin of his who ran training camps for soldiers told him that what his country really needed was young people to study abroad to learn the skills needed to rebuild their country.
- [07:11]
Simon Jack
So he headed back to the UK and gained a degree in electrical engineering in cars in Wales. He then worked briefly in computing in Cambridge, but returned to the now independent Zimbabwe to work for the state run phone company ZPTC. And that was in 1984.
- [07:27]
Singh Singh
Masiyiwa's job there involved designing telecoms networks, which was important nation building. Well, you can't really build a nation unless you can get them to speak to each other. And he earned a decent wage for that living. He even bought a brand new car of Volkswagen Golf which he delighted in driving around Harare.
- [07:43]
Simon Jack
But Strive found himself stifled by the growing bureaucracy in Zimbabwe. So after just two years at zptc, he decided to follow his mother's example and set out as an entrepreneur.
- [07:55]
Singh Singh
That's right. In 1986 he founded his very first company, Retrofit, which did electrical contracting for the construction industry. And he scraped together a meager $75 in capital and went off to get a bank loan. Now the bank agreed only on the condition that he swapped his flashy new Volkswagen Golf for a much more modest pickup truck.
- [08:16]
Simon Jack
And that was probably quite a big deal for him because that meant quite a lot to that status symbol driving around. So he was clearly very determined if he was prepared to sort of take those terms.
- [08:25]
Singh Singh
Maybe it was a test that the bank was putting him through.
- [08:27]
Simon Jack
And this was an interesting time to start a business in Zimbabwe. Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party exerted a stranglehold on the country and its economy. They actively discouraged foreign investment. And there was a corrupt underbelly to a newly bloated bureaucracy that Strive had encountered at the national telecoms company he'd worked for. Meanwhile, many educated white Zimbabwe had flared. They took their skills out of the country. So the economy was in this odd position. You know, newly independent, but pretty economically stagnant.
- [09:00]
Singh Singh
But the flip side of this was through the 1980s, the government spending in Zimbabwe tripled. And you know, they did make progress in areas like health and literacy, even if, you know, the economic results of all of this were relatively limited.
- [09:13]
Simon Jack
And this is when we begin to see if you like the beginning of Strives entrepreneurial instincts. You've got this stifling bureaucracy. He sees this big increase in government spending and he figures out the way forward is to work not against or around, but with the government. So with all this spending on infrastructure, on construction, Masayiwa knows there is going to be a need for electrical contractors. That's the reason he founded Retrofit.
- [09:39]
Singh Singh
His instincts were right. Retrofit quickly secured these big government construction contracts. And he also learned the art of raising money from banks. You know, he even secured investment from an arm of the World Bank.
- [09:51]
Simon Jack
So all of this meant that by 1990, Strive was running a burgeoning multimillion dollar business with almost 500 employees. And in just four years, when he was 29 years old, he was named Zimbabwe's businessman of the year.
- [10:04]
Singh Singh
Not bad for a 29 year old. So we can't be too precise about his actual wealth at this point, but as the owner of a multimillion dollar business, I think we can safely say that by the early 90s, Strive Masaiwa was a millionaire. And this is important to note. So far, he has stayed on the right side of Ro Gabi. But this will not last long as he goes from a million to a billion.
- [10:39]
Simon Jack
So he's a millionaire in 1990. But that's also the point when he becomes the target of the kidnappers we've talked about. They pick him up after he leaves the Mozambique embassy and take him to a secret detention center where he, as we've discussed, resorts to prayer.
- [10:53]
Singh Singh
And in one sense, his prayers are answered. So it turns out that his kidnappers are a renegade group from Zimbabwe's own intelligence agency. And you remember we talked about that cousin of his, the one who trained rebel soldiers, but told him that he needed to go overseas, train himself up, and come back to build the country. That cousin is actually a hero of the liberation war, and he now works for the president, so he has contacts. And so after a quick intervention from him and Strive Masiywa is free.
- [11:21]
Simon Jack
But for Strive, prayer also played its part. The whole experience starts his journey to becoming a devoted Christian. And to this day, he often posts online about his beliefs. He credits religion as a moral guide and his future business career. We'll see that it drives some of his philanthropic exercises.
- [11:38]
Singh Singh
You know, what? If prayer helped me escape a bunch of rebels from an intelligence agency, I too would convert.
- [11:44]
Simon Jack
Like that kind of thing. When someone is in a shipwreck and they say, dear God, if you get me out of this, I'll promise to go to church every day of my life. You get about one mile closer to shore. Maybe I'll go three days a week. And then as you lap up on the shore and crawl out of the sea, you say, I did it all on my own anyway.
- [12:03]
Singh Singh
Wow. I mean, Strive Masiwa clearly didn't think so if he's still posting about God to this day online. But by 1993, Strive Masiyiwa is ready to make the next big move in his career. He's gonna get into telecoms, and he plans to launch a company that he'll.
- [12:19]
Simon Jack
Yeah. He, along with others, has spotted the rise of mobile phones across the whole planet. Remember, back then, cell phones are these big, bulky luxury products only the very rich own. But he's been following the growth of the mobile technology industry really closely. And he predicts, correctly, that mobile communications is about to go through a massive revolution.
- [12:41]
Singh Singh
Masiwa also watched as entrepreneurs in the US brought up cellular licenses and then partnered with these big telecoms companies like AT to roll out the infrastructure needed to support them. And he wants to do the exact same thing in Zimbabwe.
- [12:56]
Simon Jack
Yeah, but Africa at this point is not in the same position as the US. 70% of people at this time. And this is astonishing. Stat had never even heard any kind of phone ring. Masaiiwa knows this is largely due to the problems of laying telephone lines across the continent. He believes cell phones will enable Africa to jump a step and roll out telecoms across the whole continent. And remember, this is his special. He knows what he's talking about. He's designed telecoms networks. That was literally what he used to do at the national phone company, ZPTC. So this is 1993.
- [13:33]
Singh Singh
Right.
- [13:33]
Simon Jack
I remember in 1992 in the UK being at university, and there was a girl there whose father was very rich, and she. She had the first mobile phone that most of us. Well, not the most I've ever seen. We'd seen the yuppies on the phone with their big bricks, their big Motorola phones, but she had one in her college, and we used to go around and stare at it.
- [13:56]
Singh Singh
Wow. It's giving kind of 2001 a space odyssey or Chimps, not that long ago.
- [14:03]
Simon Jack
I mean, it's a real testament to how quickly these industries have developed and how they've changed the world and the vast amount of wealth that's been created on the back of them.
- [14:12]
Singh Singh
I remember being a kid, this would have been also, I think, probably in the 90s and seeing for the first time someone on a mobile phone, and it was about the size of a shoe that he was pressing to his head. And I remember thinking, that's weird. Why does he have a black shoe on the side of his head? It was a phone. It was a mobile phone. I'll never forget it.
- [14:29]
Simon Jack
So he predicts this is, you know, correctly predicts this is going to be big news. And so he gets in touch with his old employer.
- [14:35]
Singh Singh
Yeah. He proposes a joint venture into cell phone networks, and he's sure that they will recognize the value of this plan to Zimbabwe. Unfortunately, however, his old bosses tell him to get lost. They had the monopoly over telecoms and they did not want a partner. And this will probably come back to haunt them. They thought that mobile phones were a fad that would never take off.
- [14:55]
Simon Jack
Pretty frustrating. Merci Iwiz says, apparent at the time. How can anyone have a monopoly over something they don't want to do. So he makes a big decision. He does something that he will do time and time again. He decides to take the government to court.
- [15:10]
Singh Singh
Of course, this also means going up against Robert Mugabe. And to many people, Mugabe was still a hero. And to some extent, you know, he was still turning the country's fortunes around in the 1990s.
- [15:20]
Simon Jack
But Mugabe was also increasingly eroding some Zimbabweans rights. He had his own cabal of favorite plutocrats, rich folks around him. And Masayiwa was not one of those.
- [15:33]
Singh Singh
So from the very moment that lawsuit kicked off, Mugabe went on television to accuse Masiiwa of being a CIA agent trying to overthrow the government. Masiwa says he became public enemy number one.
- [15:46]
Simon Jack
And the cost of pursuing this legal battle, I mean basically against the state, was more than his legal fees alone. First of all, he started losing his government construction contracts which he had for retrofit. Then he returned to his home to find it surrounded by police cars. They got intelligence agents, they're searching his house for stuff. The agent said they would be there for a while. And Masayiwa said they ended up being there for three years.
- [16:11]
Singh Singh
Yeah. So really a campaign of what you could call intimidation.
- [16:14]
Simon Jack
Yeah, I mean, you know, many people at that point would say, I'll opt for a quiet life.
- [16:18]
Singh Singh
I'm out, I'm out.
- [16:20]
Simon Jack
It's not worth it.
- [16:21]
Singh Singh
Masayiwa persisted regardless. So he hired a team of lawyers in New York who convinced the courts in Zimbabwe that the state's phone monopoly actually violated Zimbabweans constitutional rights to free sea. Interesting argument. The courts eventually ruled 11 times in his favor. But Mugabe still found ways to stop him from launching that telecoms company.
- [16:42]
Simon Jack
After one legal victory in 1995, Econet partnered with the Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson and started setting up base stations for their cell phone network. But Mugabe soon stamped that out. He forbade private cell phone operations completely, with a two year jail term for offenders. So Econet had to cease operations.
- [17:02]
Singh Singh
Masiwa has claimed that he was put under pressure to enlist partners from the ruling elite of Zimbabwe. And when he refused, middlemen representing officials said he could have his telecoms license if he paid a bribe, apparently for US$400,000. But Masiwa consistently refused to pay any bribes. He said, we will never stop corruption in Africa until people stand up and say no.
- [17:26]
Simon Jack
I've read so many stories about people who have to combat corruption in their countries and I always think it must be one of the most morale sapping things to realize what you're up against. And one of bravest things you can possibly do to actually persist in the face of that because it must feel like you can't win. So, you know, it's tough in some jurisdictions.
- [17:46]
Singh Singh
It really is. And I think it takes a lot of guts to stand up and say, no, actually I'm not going to pay that. Especially if you already, as Strive Masiwa did have actually the money to pay it.
- [17:56]
Simon Jack
Yeah. Now, those specific corruption allegations about the bribe he did not want to pay are hard to verify. But corruption of this kind was common in Mugabe, Zimbabwe. The government was certainly not backing down. So the legal costs, the loss of government contracts were bringing Mass close to bankruptcy. And by now he's also married with young children. He's struggling to pay his employees. His wife Sitsi said, we were so broke, we couldn't even afford to give our visitors tea. And in fact, that's the point at which he sells off his first company retrofit.
- [18:26]
Singh Singh
And he's also unsure as to whether to even continue with this expensive legal case after losing one legal judgment. He even has this, I guess you could call it a kind of sliding doors moment because a friend in America offers him this opportunity to head head up the McDonald's franchise in any African country of his choice. So he could have picked between telecoms and burgers. And, you know, McDonald's was already a really famous, profitable brand, so he could have made a lot of money from that.
- [18:54]
Simon Jack
He could.
- [18:54]
Singh Singh
But he is still motivated to keep fighting. So he wants to improve telecoms in his country and he also wants to fight corruption. So he pushes on and he cites his faith, which is of course born from that kidnapping and fostered by his deeply religious wife, as the thing that kept him all going through this.
- [19:11]
Simon Jack
His wife, Sitsi prayed to God at this time, saying if Strive was granted the license for his telecoms company, they would help as many poor people as possible for the rest of their lives.
- [19:20]
Singh Singh
And in 1996, at their lowest financial ebb, the couple actually start what becomes the Higher Life Foundation. So that now provides scholarships to thousands of orphans and needy children, as well as healthcare initiatives across Africa. So they kind of made good on that promise.
- [19:34]
Simon Jack
And God seemed to hold up his end of the bargain as well, because Masiiwa won his final legal appeal and Supreme Court ordered Mugabe's government to put a cellular license out to tender, which means everyone else can bid on it.
- [19:47]
Singh Singh
Right. So it's no longer in the hands of a monopoly, essentially. Still, Masayiwa hadn't Really escaped the country's corruption. Ikonet didn't actually win the bidding process. So instead the license went to a consortium called Telesel, which is backed by Robert Mugabe's nephew, Leo. So Masiua heads back to court, suing for the right to see Telesel's bid.
- [20:08]
Simon Jack
Incredible sort of stamina to keep going through the court.
- [20:11]
Singh Singh
Cler must have been like this guy.
- [20:13]
Simon Jack
You again? What now? But he wins that. And when he wins, he discovers that Telesel didn't even meet all the technical requirements. But Econet did. Telesel's license is first cancelled, but then reinstalled by the telecoms minister. So it's all a massive mess. And by December 1997, even Mugabe's own vice president, Joshua Nkomo, condemns cabinet colleagues and threatens to resign.
- [20:36]
Singh Singh
Eventually, there is a cabinet reshuffle and Masihiwa's company, Econet, is granted a license for a mobile network. So he essentially wins. And Masiyiwen launches that mobile network in Zimbabwe in July 1998. And within a week, the company had 10,000 customers. So really, he's triumphed in the courts.
- [20:56]
Simon Jack
Yeah, and he's doing well because you remember zptc, his old employers didn't think there was any future. They clearly woke up and smelled the coffee. And during the this extended five year legal fight that Massey has been in, they've launched their own cell phone network. But yet, in two months, Econet, Strive's company, they gain a 45% market share.
- [21:16]
Singh Singh
And sure enough, soon he decides to do what successful companies do. He decides to float the company on the stock market. So he floats it on the Harare Stock Exchange and he sells 40% of the company to raise about $17 million. So his chunk is worth about about 20 million.
- [21:32]
Simon Jack
Not bad. And Econet had become the largest public company in Zimbabwe. That means companies that the public can buy shares in. Which is maybe not surprising when you consider how hard it was to set up a public company in Zimbabwe in the first place.
- [21:46]
Singh Singh
But despite that success, Masiwa soon decides to leave Zimbabwe for good. So in March 2000, he moves to South Africa. He has said he was keen to foster a multinational African business. But he had also been tipped off that his life was under threat from Mugabe's government.
- [22:04]
Simon Jack
Users of Econet services had circulated slogans supporting the opposition during a referendum in 1999. Masihiwa had also lent money to Zimbabwe's three independent newspapers, including the notoriously anti government Daily News, which was, by the way, later shut down by Mugabe's regime. All this had angered the authorities. Sympathetic security police told Masaiiwa his life could be in danger. So look out now.
- [22:30]
Singh Singh
It's worth reflecting at this point that Robert Mugabe ran Zimbabwe for 37 years. And as time went on, he became less popular, he became more dictatorial and more willing to use his powers to repress his enemies. You could say he really went from being the liberator of Zimbabwe to its tyrant. Elections in Zimbabwe became increasingly less free, they became less fat. And by the year 2000, for someone like Strive Masiua, whose companies were being linked to anti government newspapers, to anti government users, it probably made sense for him to leave the country.
- [23:06]
Simon Jack
So three sort of things are going on here. He's getting richer, his company's getting more influential and more useful in terms of, you know, communicating potentially anti government messages. Mugabe is becoming more dictatorial. So all those things kind of clash in a way that is going to jeopardize his business and his life.
- [23:25]
Singh Singh
And I'm sure that kidnapping figured quite large in his mind as well.
- [23:28]
Simon Jack
So he goes to neighboring South Africa, which offered him some major new business opportunities as well. And he immediately started a new iteration, if you like, of his company, calling it Econet Wireless International.
- [23:41]
Singh Singh
And in just two years, Econet Wireless was generating revenues of $300 million a year. They'd won the tenders to run networks in eight countries, which included Botswana and Morocco. They even spread outside of Africa. So they won tenders as, as New Zealand and in Britain, where they set up a mobile network targeting the UK's many African expats.
- [24:03]
Simon Jack
Yeah. In fact, one of the key countries where Econet had won a license was Nigeria. Now, Nigeria, compared to Zimbabwe, is a burgeoning economic powerhouse and it's massive. It is massive because in 2000, Zimbabwe, for example, had a population of 11 million. Nigeria's was 125 million. More than 10 times as big. It's now over 200 million. So that is a serious economist economy.
- [24:25]
Singh Singh
Masiwa here again was quick to embrace new technology. So when he won that license in Nigeria, his Econet Wireless Nigeria became the first company there to launch what was called the global system for mobile communications. Quite a mouthful. Let's just call it gsm. Now, you might not actually know what GSM is, but this is basically the second generation of digital cell technology. So you've heard of third, fourth and fifth generations. These are called 3G, 4G, 5G. So this is back in 2001, remember? And that cutting edge technology is 2G.
- [24:59]
Simon Jack
Yeah, I remember being a business reporter around this time in a GSM. The G of GSM is what you hear in 2G, 3G, 4G, 5G. Strive himself was the first person to make a call on this new system. In a kind of Alexander Graham Bell type moment, he rings the telecoms regulator.
- [25:16]
Singh Singh
Says, we're live a big moment for Strive in Nigeria. I think the catch is, is that setting up this kind of infrastructure is not cheap. Right? So each cellular tower cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the bigger the country to create that kind of coverage network, the more this is going to cost. So when Masiwa had set up Econet Wireless Nigeria, he'd had to get a lot of local investors on board. His parent company actually owned only about 5% of this new company outright. Essentially, he didn't really have real control.
- [25:47]
Simon Jack
He was a minority shareholder there. And although he soon had a 35% market share in Nigeria, Econet Wireless Nigeria was also saddled with quite a lot of debt. It was in need of more investment. The company's directors were blaming Masayiwa for failing to get the financing that he'd promised.
- [26:03]
Singh Singh
Now, important to note, this isn't the first time Masiwa was accused of failing to get funding. So his network in New Zealand actually took eight years to set up because of a lack of cash. I mean, come on, three GS rolling down the hill at you.
- [26:16]
Simon Jack
It's funny though that it's quite a normal story in those kind of entrepreneurial characters when they say, don't worry, I'll the money, I'll get the money. Let's just focus on the idea. We'll sort this out. And you know, this seems to be no, no, no exception.
- [26:30]
Singh Singh
Exactly.
- [26:31]
Simon Jack
Also, the Nigerian directors claim Masiwa had abused his management contract by placing unqualified friends and relatives who are fleeing Zimbabwe's turmoil into some pretty plum lucrative positions in the company.
- [26:43]
Singh Singh
So importantly, Masi were denied everything. But in October 2003, the board voted to sever all ties with their parent company and to boot, Masiwa were out altogether. And they even went as far as delisting him as a shareholder and offering his shares up for sale. I mean, this is quite extreme, isn't it? Can they actually do that?
- [27:02]
Simon Jack
I'm not sure under, you know, modern corporate law whether you can just boot out a shareholder and just delist him anyway. Misayiwa didn't believe the directors had any right to take his shares. He claimed he did have the 150 million of financing that he'd lined up by the appointed date of 2003. So once again, he settles in, gets in his trench for a lengthy court pay.
- [27:23]
Singh Singh
Yeah, and he certainly has experience of those.
- [27:25]
Simon Jack
I mean, his lawyers are obviously getting paid very well for this, But I'm also thinking they must be like, not this guy again.
- [27:30]
Singh Singh
Yeah. Once he walks in through the door, you know, you're in for a fight. And actually, this was a very long fight because the legal dispute over this lasted for over a decade and it became very complicated. Econet wireless Nigeria was sold multiple times over that period. Masayiwa, of course, tried to block those sales because he knew how they would complicate the case.
- [27:50]
Simon Jack
Yeah. And he blamed some of the difficulties he faced in Nigeria on his refusal to pay bribes. He's claimed that a local state governor demanded $4.5 million in sort of kickbacks. And after he refused to pay, that governor pressured investors to force him out. You know, fairly or unfairly. Nigerian business is a sort of byword for corruption and bribes. So, you know, this is not a difficult story to believe.
- [28:15]
Singh Singh
No. And actually that governor was later arrested himself and jailed for 13 years for money laundering and fraud in Nigeria. Masiwa actually appeared as a prosecution witness in a related case in which the governor's own London solicitor was ordered to repay $28 million of laundered money.
- [28:33]
Simon Jack
Yeah. And although at one point Masi was suing for $1.5 billion, he eventually settled in 2016 for 127 million. By that point, the company that owned Econ Nigeria was actually in business with him anyway. So he just, you know, he'll take the win.
- [28:49]
Singh Singh
Yeah, he certainly did. And that long legal case in Nigeria, even though it did hold him back there, it didn't actually stop his other business interests. In fact, Econet was actually doing really well across the continent, once again because of Masiwa's embrace of new technology.
- [29:05]
Simon Jack
And once again, as we've come across so many times in this series, there has been no more transformative technology, no more wealth creating technology in the 2000s than the spread of the Internet. Of course we've seen on this program, it's created many, many billionaires. African telecoms titan strive Masayiwa is another one of them.
- [29:26]
Singh Singh
So he invested early. He bought a 60% stake in Zimbabwe's largest Internet provider in 1999. Now that is a big number and also quite the bet because back then, home Internet was rare anywhere and especially across Africa. But Masiwa already knew it was going to change the world. And he said that while its impact was yet to be felt in Zimbabwe, it was already accepted universally that its impact on humanity would rank with technological breakthroughs such as the printing press, the telephone, the automobile, or television.
- [29:57]
Simon Jack
Yeah. And of course, he wasn't wrong, and he was willing to invest to ensure that that impact was felt in Africa as well. So in 2009, he founded another company, Liquid Telecom, to build digital infrastructure. By 2011, that company had spent $400 million to lay fiber optic cables linking countries in southern Africa to the worldwide network, the World Wide Web, giving them access to broadband. And while other telecoms companies were focusing on cables in big cities, Masayiwa's company saw the value in linking minor cities and towns as well. By 2013, they had built Africa's largest fiber optic network across southern, eastern and central Africa. A huge investment program, transformative for the continent.
- [30:41]
Singh Singh
A huge amount of money to put into infrastructure that benefits basically everyone. And it wasn't actually just infrastructure. So Masaiwa also provided web services that were really important. So in 2010, he launched EcoCash, which is a mobile money transfer service. So this is one of the first companies in Zimbabwe to actually introduce mobile money services. And this is important in a country like Zimbabwe because in some more rural parts, there was actually no access to traditional banking, no banks with bricks and mortar outposts. So this was something that actually really changed lives. People were able to use their money in ways that were transfer it easily, transfer it easily.
- [31:18]
Simon Jack
And it was so massive. This, because I used to be a trustee on a charity which did some work in casual Kenya. And what I was amazed by was that actually when mobile banking Africa was ahead of Europe because they didn't have that existing infrastructure of banks. This took off really quickly, leapfrogging some of the legacy players in Europe. So mobile banking became more advanced in parts of Africa than it was in more developed parts of the world.
- [31:44]
Singh Singh
But it's worth knowing that back at the start of mobile banking in Africa, it was such a new idea that people still needed some convincing. So EcoCash actually used some quite unusual and fun methods to encourage Zimbabweans to sign up with their cash.
- [31:58]
Simon Jack
I love these stories. Yeah, they hired actors to stage street fights. One actor was pretending to steal another's money. Then they revealed it's all pretend. And Nico Cash's marketing message to the gather crowd was like, your money is safe because it's in my phone.
- [32:12]
Singh Singh
You can just imagine the big reveal with the actor going, it's in my phone, guys. It's fine. They also hired uni students to loudly have conversations about transferring money on their phones on buses. So they were hoping that they influence. Yeah, an early type of influencing. They were hoping people would kind of listen in and eavesdrop and go, oh, what's that? They actually calculated that they would need to talk to 1.5 million people to reach a tipping point. But EcoCash did it anyway. They also offered $1 deposited in new accounts as an incentive for people to sign up. So they were really creative with their marketing.
- [32:45]
Simon Jack
Amazing. Well, it worked because within 18 months of launching, 2.3 million Zimbabwe Zimbabweans had signed up for the Service and made $200 million worth of transactions. That is roughly, this is a staggering number, 20% of Zimbabwe's GDP.
- [33:02]
Singh Singh
That's huge.
- [33:03]
Simon Jack
EcoCash soon started enabling other transactions like payrolls, bill payments. They later launched savings accounts and loans with no paperwork. So a real suite of kind of digital banking products.
- [33:16]
Singh Singh
And with the growth of Internet across Africa, Africa, understandably, Masiwa's companies prospered and did very well for themselves. And sure enough, when the African business magazine Ventures Africa published its first ever African rich list in 2013, Strive Masiwa was listed as one of the continent's 55 billionaires. They estimated his wealth to be around $1.5 billion. So he's made it. He is Zimbabwe's first ever billionaire. It's been a long journey, but he's made it. So let's take him to beyond a billion. Where is he now?
- [33:58]
Simon Jack
Well, since he became a billionaire, Strive masaiiwa's companies have continued to do well. Both the digital infrastructure and the products he provides have spread across Africa as they have the rest of the world. Liquid telecom has laid over 100,000 km of cables from South Africa to Egypt at a cost of over three and a half billion dollars. He's got an all purpose communications, social media and global mobile phone bank banking app called Sasai and has been responsible for laying the foundations of South Africa's 5G network. He recently joked that only Coca Cola operates in more African countries than us.
- [34:33]
Singh Singh
That's quite the tagline. But Masiwa himself actually left the continent in 2010 and he moved to the UK. So that actually meant that when they published their rich list in 2022, the UK newspaper the Sunday Times named him Britain's first black billion billionaire. At the time, they estimate his wealth to be around $2.5 billion.
- [34:54]
Simon Jack
In recent years, Masayiwa has started focusing his efforts on philanthropy. He sits on the boards and councils of some pretty significant institutions. Bank of America, Stanford University. That always comes up in these stories. By hooker, by crook. Stanford's there. National Geographic Society, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. These are kind of blue chip, very respectable institutions. He says that there he represents African business and humanitarian needs. Pop figure on social media. He's got 5 million Facebook followers reading his thoughts on everything from faith, philanthropy, entrepreneurship.
- [35:28]
Singh Singh
So that is currently where Strive Masiwa is today. So it is time for us to judge him. This is the section of the podcast where we look at our billionaires through a range of categories like wealth, villainy, philanthropy, power and legacy. And we rate them from zero to a 10.
- [35:43]
Simon Jack
And then we try and figure out whether they're good, bad, or just another billionaire. So we start with wealth. The highest his wealth has been estimated was $3 billion US dollars in 2022. One of his companies is heavily investing in data centers across Africa. Data center is obviously a new thing. AI is coming. So it's pretty likely his fortune could rise in the next few years. Not much information on his spending, but thought to have bought a $25 million penthouse in New York in 2016. So in terms of absolute wealth, he's low by our standards.
- [36:20]
Singh Singh
And we have very high standards, should be said, in case anybody's wondering how we could think 3 billion is not.
- [36:26]
Simon Jack
Well, yeah, we've got a couple of what we call centi billionaires out there, which are people with more than 100 billion. But nevertheless, I think that context is important. And coming from a former colony turned independent country turned dictatorship turned whatever, pretty impressive. And given the fights he had to, you know, go through along the way.
- [36:47]
Singh Singh
Yeah, he spent a lot of money on those legal fights. And I think also, you know, if we talk about the context, he is also his country's very first billionaire, which I think boots him up the rankings somewhat.
- [36:57]
Simon Jack
Definitely. So in absolute terms, he's a one, but in relative terms and in context, I think he's a five or a six.
- [37:04]
Singh Singh
I think I would give him a six out of 10.
- [37:05]
Simon Jack
Okay, six it is for both of us. Villainy. What have they done to get to the top? Going to be tricky to get to the top without playing the game, but he seems to have been reluctant to do that.
- [37:16]
Singh Singh
No, he has seemed to have kept his nose fairly clean. You know, there are those accusations that he didn't provide the financing in Nigeria and New Zealand, putting unqualified associates in positions in Econet Nigeria. Having said that, you know, this was to help them escape mugabe So I don't know how much we can rank him on villainy for that. I don't know if he's scores that highly on villainy.
- [37:39]
Simon Jack
No, I'm not so sure either. I mean, it's very difficult in a melting pot like Zimbabwe during the 80s, 90s and beyond. And I think that given that context and that environment, I don't think he scores high on villainy at all.
- [37:55]
Singh Singh
No, I think I would give him maybe just even a two out of ten.
- [37:59]
Simon Jack
Same with me. Two out of ten. We're agreeing today. That's nice for once.
- [38:03]
Singh Singh
Well, we do agree a lot, actually.
- [38:05]
Simon Jack
We do agree a lot. What about giving back philanthropy?
- [38:07]
Singh Singh
So him and his wife have actually signed the Giving Pledge, which is set up by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in which billionaires vow to donate at least 50% of their wealth to charitable causes. So that's a tick for them.
- [38:19]
Simon Jack
Yeah. He's got a philanthropic foundation which he founded early in his business career called Higher Life. In fact, it was his lowest ebb in 1996, and since then it's helped fund the education of quarter of a million children and mentored 70,000 young people. He funds mentorship programs to encourage more entrepreneurs in African business.
- [38:38]
Singh Singh
He's also a key player in Africa's response to medical crises. So he helped out with Africa's Covid response. He was also asked by the African Union to assist during the 2014 Ebola crisis. And he's also provided $10 million in cash and other assistance to 1700 healthcare workers to urge them not to strike over eroding wages during the COVID pandemic.
- [39:00]
Simon Jack
We've seen richer people. People do less for sure. I would say. So I'm going to score him quite highly on this. I'm going to give him a seven.
- [39:09]
Singh Singh
Oh, I feel like I'm feeling in a generous mood today. So I'm going to give him an 8 out of 10. I think the fact that he founded a philanthropic foundation at a point where he was really worried he was going to have to crash out of business altogether says a lot about him.
- [39:23]
Simon Jack
Yeah, so power, legacy. I mean, he said being an entrepreneur is not about making money, it's about being an agent for change, transformative change for our society, societies. In my experience, all entrepreneurs and billionaires say it's not about the money man.
- [39:38]
Singh Singh
Right.
- [39:38]
Simon Jack
It's about changing. It's about changing hearts and minds, changing the world, changing people's lives. If I get rich along the way, so be it. But in his, in his case, I I'm a bit more tolerant of that, of that kind of guff.
- [39:51]
Singh Singh
Yeah. He does seem to consistently advocate for Africa. You know, he's. He's on boards, he's on councillors of international institutions. You know, we've listed just a few of them. And the thing that does impress me though is, you know, fighting Robert Mugabe I. In the courts.
- [40:03]
Simon Jack
Yeah, fighting Robert Mugabe in the courts under incredible pressure. And I do believe that he had a sense of nation building for the country, saying that, you know, this is like the railroads of the 18th and 19th century, mobile telephones, telecommunications is going to be that great economic enabler and that's going to be important for this continent like others. So I'm. I kind of believe in that. So I think that, you know, in the world, power and legacy, legacy probably doesn't score very highly. But within Africa. First, Zimbabwean billionaire. I'm going to give him a five because he probably has quite a lot of inspirational power within Africa as well.
- [40:44]
Singh Singh
And you know, people do talk about the rise of Africa as an economic powerhouse of a continent, right? Yeah. So I actually think I would rate him higher than that. I think I'd give him even an 8 out of 10, because I don't think people will be talking about Africa in that way unless it had access to technology like the kind that he provided.
- [41:05]
Simon Jack
Okay, I'm going to give him five, because if he hadn't done it, it's likely somebody else would have done.
- [41:09]
Singh Singh
That is true.
- [41:10]
Simon Jack
Okay, so five from me, eight from you on power and legacy. So good, bad, or just another billionaire. This one's an easy one for me. I think he's good. I think to have done what he did in the circumstances and the context, with the historical sweep of what was going on in Zimbabwe at the time, taking on Mugabe refus to pay bribes in Nigeria, and yet coming out on top as the first billionaire from his country. For me, he's a good billionaire.
- [41:37]
Singh Singh
It's quite a journey, isn't it?
- [41:38]
Simon Jack
It is a journey.
- [41:39]
Singh Singh
I do think also, even though I know you said that if he hadn't provided Internet or telecoms to his country and across Africa, someone else would have done it. The fact that he was the one who did it, despite all the setbacks he encountered along the way, the legal challenges, the corruption, and he did an undisputably good thing for his continent. And I think for that I agree. I think he is a good billionaire.
- [42:03]
Simon Jack
So strive. Ms. Iiwa, you are a good billionaire. Congratulations.
- [42:08]
Singh Singh
So who do we have on the next episode.
- [42:10]
Simon Jack
Fascinating character. At one point, very briefly, the world's richest man.
- [42:16]
Singh Singh
He made some of the biggest investments ever and also some of the biggest losses. So he's quite the gambler.
- [42:22]
Simon Jack
Yeah. Made fortunes. Lost fortunes. At one point, lost 96% of his wealth. Ouch.
- [42:27]
Singh Singh
He's known as the Bill Gates of Japan. That is Masayoshi Son. Look out for his episode.
- [42:32]
Simon Jack
Good Bad Billionaire is a BBC World Service podcast. It's produced by Mark Ward with additional production by Tamsin Curry. Paul Smith is the editor and it's a BBC Studios audio production for the BBC World Service.
- [42:44]
Singh Singh
The senior podcast producer is Kat Collins and the commissioning editor is John Minow. And if you enjoyed it, do tell a friend.