ADVERTORIAL
interview with
KENNETH KWAMINA TH
– CEO Dalex Finance & Leasing Co. Ltd
Dalex Finance and Leasing Company Ltd.( DALEX), won‘ Business of the Year’ and its CEO, Kenneth Kwamina Thompson, won the‘ Business Man of the Year’ at the 2016 Ghana Economic Forum Excellence Awards. Kenneth Kwamina Thompson was interviewed on the double awards.
To what do you attribute these awards? Business growth and the triumph of business strategy even in adverse economic circumstances. The results of this triumph are:
• Average Asset Growth of over 50 % year-on-year;
• Average Revenue Growth of over
• 60 % year-on-year;
• Employees from under 170 in 2013 to over 2,200 in 2016; and
• Introduction of Dalex SWIFT – first mobile money investment product
How did Dalex Finance and Leasing Company Ltd. come about?
Circa 2006, Alex Bruks, an ex-staffer of the International Finance Corporation invites me to join him in setting up a finance house. I had at that time just moved on from Fidelity Capital partners where I managed the Fidelity Equity Fund I. My claim to fame then was that I had made some interesting private equity investments in the Information Technology sector. BusyInternet and theSOFTtribe were the biggest and most promising IT companies in Ghana and they were my“ babies”.
I am an accountant by profession and had worked in some fairly large chartered accounting firms and also in Barclays Bank Plc all in the United Kingdom. Alex Bruks and I chose to set up a finance house because: our experience was primarily in the financial sector and the capital requirements though heavy were not as onerous as that of a commercial bank. At that time our desire was not really to be trail blazers. We looked around us for what products and stratagems worked for finance houses and copied them.
Circa 2012, DALEX is now a Non-Bank Financial Institution licensed by the Bank of Ghana and offering SME loans, Salary Loans, Equipment Leasing and Fixed Deposit Accounts( FDA). We had grown: from a single office to offices in over 10 locations; staff size from 3 to over 150; given out over GHC 90 million in loans, and, served over 20,000 persons and organisations.
What drove the growth of DALEX in the first 6 years?
First, the economy of Ghana was experiencing fast and steady growth in those years. A reasonable well managed company would grow by just being in the right place at the right time. Secondly, I was an accountant at heart. The bean counter in me was risk averse in a sector where my competitors were typically taking huge risks and they were periodically taking hits. The market rewarded DALEX’ s prudence with bigger and bigger funds managed under our FDA product.
Thirdly, the increase in FDA funds correspondingly funded the increase in SME Loans and also in Salary Loans. Again, because of our prudence we had lower Non-Performing Loan ratios than was average in our sector.
Finally, the firm run by‘ the accountant’ was far more operation and cost efficient than most in the sector. Bank of Ghana statistics indicated that we had the one of the highest return on capital ratios. Here was the big‘ BUT’, our growth was not founded on a clear business strategy. Our business was not founded on a desire to be different. Our value proposition to the various markets and clients was at best vaguely defined. DALEX at the end of 2012 lacked clarity, focus and direction since we were unsure of who we were and where we were going.
36 Business Times Africa | 2016