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Investors To Launch First-Ever African Syndicated News Service

Investors To Launch First-Ever African Syndicated News Service

The African News Agency — Africa’s first-ever syndicated news service — is scheduled to launch March 1 in South Africa with an initial investment of $20 million and the muscle of some powerful African business leaders, according to IndependentOnline.

Founders of the African News Agency, or ANA, include Iqbal Survé, executive chairman of Sekunjalo Investment Holdings and Ladislas Agbesi, executive chairman of the Pan African Business Forum.

The Sekunjalo Group is a bunch of companies, investments and funds that describes itself as self funding, capital intensive, and strategic in its investments. It answers to shareholders.

Survé founded Sekunjalo Investments in 1996 with the goal of investing in black-owned businesses. This South Africa-based private equity firm specializes in acquisitions, PIPEs, and buyouts. Its many operations include publishing. The following show up as Sekunjalo publications: Independent Online, The Star, Saturday Star, Daily Voice, Cape Times, Cape Argus, Weekend Argus, Business Report, Sunday Independent, Pretoria News, Weekend Pretoria News, The Post, Sunday Tribune,  The Mercury, Daily News, Diamond Fields Advertiser, and Isolezwe.

The Pan-African Business Forum is a multilateral, private-sector driven organization founded by a group of statesmen and a new generation of entrepreneurs, according to its Facebook page.

The announcement follows reports that the South African Press Association (Sapa) will be liquidated and cease operating March 31, 2015, leaving a void in the South African media industry, IOL reports.

Sapa’s effectiveness as a syndication service was compromised when two major media houses withdrew in 2014, according to the report.

The African News Agency will collaborate with partners across Africa to create a news syndication service by Africans, for Africans, and for a global audience, according to IOL.

It will provide South Africa and Africa with business, political, lifestyle and sports news, and will do outreach in the South African and African media markets.

The ANA will invite media partners to join who feel they can benefit from the news syndication service, said Chris Borain, founding CEO of ANA. Borain is former CEO of Primedia Online and head of business development for BBC Worldwide Australasia, according to IOL.

Multimedia content will be provided via the Baobab Suite, an African global media platform.