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