Barclays to rebrand to ABSA

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Barclays to rebrand to ABSA

Special Correspondent - May 17, 2018

Barclays Africa Group shareholders have approved the lender’s planned change of name to Absa Group starting July. This, in effect, sets in motion the start...

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CityBlue Hotels, one of Africa’s fastest-growing hotel groups, has selected UK-based platform Inntelo AI to deploy AI-native concierge agents across its portfolio, marking a significant step in the group’s strategy to lead the next phase of hospitality innovation across the continent. The announcement will be unveiled at the Future Hospitality Summit Africa (www.FutureHospitality.com) taking place in Nairobi on 31 March 2026. The rollout represents one of the first scaled implementations of AI-native concierge agents in African hospitality, positioning CityBlue Hotels at the forefront of AI-driven transformation in the sector. Operating across Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and expected to open soon in Ghana, Uganda and Zambia, with additional strategic tie-ups in South Africa and Mozambique, CityBlue Hotels’ partnership with Inntelo AI comes amid continued growth in Africa’s tourism sector, supported by rising intra-African travel and increasing global demand for new destinations. As part of its broader digital strategy, CityBlue Hotels will deploy Inntelo AI’s platform to embed AI directly into hotel operations. The AI-native system coordinates guest interactions and service workflows in real time, enabling faster response times, improved task prioritisation, and consistent service delivery at scale, while allowing teams to focus on high-value, in-person guest engagement. The partnership also includes the development of educational programmes to advance skills, innovation, and AI adoption across Africa’s hospitality industry. Jameel Verjee, said: “CityBlue has always been focused on where our markets are going. As we scale, AI-native operations become essential to delivering consistency, speed, and quality across multiple geographies. “This partnership allows us to embed AI at the core of how we operate—supporting our teams in real time, reducing friction, and elevating the guest experience across every property. Just as importantly, we are shaping how AI is applied within an African context.” Asif Alidina, added: “CityBlue Hotels is exactly the kind of operator that defines where the industry is heading. Their focus on AI-native operations and scalable systems makes them a natural partner. “Together, we are deploying technology that is purpose-built for hospitality—combining conversational and agentic AI to support teams, enhance guest experiences, and set a new standard for modern hotel operations in Africa.”

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The LAPTRUST Defined Benefit (DB) Scheme saw net assets rise to Sh28.1 billion, up from Sh26.99 billion in 2023, reflecting the scheme’s consistent investment strategy. The County Pension Fund (CPF) posted the most significant growth, with net assets surging to Sh51.67 billion from Sh36.97 billion. CPF Group Group MD and CEO Hosea Kili credited the performance to prudent fund management, a deep understanding of member needs, and a focus on financial literacy through innovation and partnerships. The Group declared an 8.8 percent interest rate despite macroeconomic volatility. Active membership rose to 94,116 following the enrolment of over 17,500 new members, while the sponsor base expanded to 194 institutions. Other schemes under the Group also recorded positive growth, with the Salih Fund attracting 9,895 members, the Post-Retirement Medical Fund increasing its assets from Sh32.8 million to Sh55.2 million, and the Individual Pension Scheme posting a 42.4 percent rise in assets to Sh4.11 billion.

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Africa’s leading electric vehicle (EV) and clean energy infrastructure platform, today announced the successful closing of its latest funding round at $270 million. This milestone follows a newly finalized $55 million investment from NewTrails Capital, a prominent Chinese growth-stage investment fund focusing on emerging markets with strategic locations in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Nigeria. Scaling Africa’s next-generation mobility and energy ecosystem This capital injection positions Spiro among the continent's most heavily backed Africa’s e-mobility and energy ecosystem. Building on the support of long-standing institutional partners such as FEDA, Spiro’s latest equity round also draws global capital from Europe and Africa, Impact Fund Denmark, Equitane and FEDA, on top of the recent backing from Nithio and the Africa Go Green Fund. "I would like to thank NewTrails Capital for believing in Spiro’s model and supporting our unique tech, energy and innovation journey. Having deployed 100,000 electric vehicles and 2,500 smart-swap stations across seven active markets, Spiro has firmly moved past the proof-of-concept phase. Partnering with NewTrail Capital’s deeply experienced team marks a powerful new chapter for Spiro as we prepare for the next steps of our pan-African and international expansion”, stated Gagan Gupta, Founder of Spiro and Chairman of Equitane. Yufan Zhang, Founding Partner of NewTrails Capital, added: “We believe Spiro is driving a profound “energy revolution” across mobility use cases in Africa. This represents not only a vast and highly imaginative market opportunity, but also the potential to grow into an infrastructure-like business that creates meaningful commercial, social, and environmental value. In our view, Spiro’s core strengths lie in its deeply localized operating capabilities, vertically integrated supply chain, digitally enabled ecosystem, sound unit economics, and strong ability to scale rapidly. More importantly, Spiro has systematically integrated vehicles, batteries, energy replenishment, payments, and service networks into a solution that is truly tailored to the needs of African users, effectively addressing long-standing structural pain points in the local market. As a Chinese fund committed to investing in Africa’s energy transition and green technology, we are also very encouraged to see Chinese supply chains and financing playing an increasingly important role in this process. Spiro is still a young company, and everything today is only the beginning. We look forward to continuing to fulfill our role as a long-term investor, contributing our resources and experience, growing together with Spiro, and helping accelerate Africa’s new energy transition.”, This partnership will be instrumental to support Spiro’s current manufacturing and supply chain localisation effort on the continent in particular with Chinese suppliers.

Spiro secures $55M additional backing from Chinese investor NewTrails Capital

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Radisson Hotel Group (RHG) (www.RadissonHotels.com) is helping drive a new era in healthcare meeting planning, contributing to the industry’s evolution from operational event delivery to a structured, strategic discipline focused on improving scientific exchange, decision-making, and healthcare outcomes. The findings emerge from the Radisson Hotel Group Knowledge Exchange: Healthcare Planning, Design and Strategy Summit held in Florence, Italy, where 75 experts from across the pharmaceutical, healthcare agency, and venue production sectors came together to explore the future of healthcare meeting design. Built to drive tangible outcomes, the two-day summit centered on collaborative working sessions and practical workshops that translated industry insights into actionable frameworks, rather than a traditional conference format. The resulting report identifies a clear industry shift: healthcare meetings are increasingly being recognized not as standalone events, but as strategic communication systems that require structured design, measurable methodologies, and continuous improvement. “Healthcare meetings are no longer simply logistical exercises—they are strategic communication platforms that can drive measurable educational, scientific, and organizational outcomes,” said Muriel Poulenc, Senior Director, Sales Strategy at Radisson Hotel Group. “Across the industry, we are seeing growing recognition that better outcomes require more than flawless execution. They require structured design, integrated workflows, and a more deliberate approach to how meetings are planned, delivered, and measured. The organizations embracing this shift will be best positioned to create meaningful impact.” Healthcare meeting design is becoming a discipline A central theme emerging from the Florence summit is the growing professionalization of healthcare meeting planning. As regulatory requirements, stakeholder expectations, and organizational complexity continue to increase, the industry is moving toward shared methodologies, frameworks, and measurement systems that support more consistent and effective outcomes. Building on discussions first initiated at the 2025 Knowledge Exchange, participants worked to translate industry insight into practical, repeatable tools designed to improve meeting effectiveness, compliance, and stakeholder engagement. The report argues that healthcare meetings should no longer be viewed as isolated events, but as intentionally designed systems that support learning, collaboration, and decision-making across the healthcare ecosystem. The healthcare meeting planner is becoming a decision architect As healthcare meetings become more complex, the role of the planner is evolving beyond coordination and logistics. The report highlights the emergence of meeting planners as strategic decision architects, responsible for aligning stakeholders, structuring workflows, and helping organizations make better decisions throughout the planning lifecycle. Workshop discussions revealed that many organizational challenges, including delays, inefficiencies, and rework, are often the result of fragmented decision-making rather than execution shortcomings. Participants concluded that better meetings depend on better decision structures, greater alignment, and earlier strategic involvement from planners. AI won't fix healthcare meetings. Better systems will While artificial intelligence (AI) continues to dominate industry conversations, the Florence summit challenged the assumption that technology alone will solve healthcare meeting challenges. According to discussions and data presented during the summit, while AI adoption across the industry is high, relatively few organizations are achieving its full value. Participants agreed that the real challenge is not technology adoption, but the integration of AI into coherent workflows, governance models, and decision-making systems. The report identifies fragmented processes, disconnected workflows, and inconsistent planning structures as some of the industry's most significant barriers to progress. In many organizations, as much as 40–60% of planning activity remains focused on non-value-creating work. To address these challenges, RHG advocates for the adoption of structured methodologies, including Lean Six Sigma, Agile, and Sprint thinking, to redesign healthcare meeting planning around flow, efficiency, and measurable outcomes. Build. Measure. Learn. One of the report's key contributions is the introduction and exploration of the Meeting Flow Efficiency Ratio (MFER), a framework designed to measure the balance between value-creating activity and reactive planning effort. The model demonstrates how organizations can increase productive planning time by improving workflow design, reducing friction, and creating greater alignment across teams and stakeholders. The report also reinforces the need to move beyond one-off event thinking toward a continuous engagement model. This evolution is particularly important given the report's finding that 66% of healthcare professionals change their clinical practice or prescribing behavior following participation in industry-sponsored symposia, highlighting the significant influence healthcare meetings can have on professional decision-making and patient outcomes. An industry ready to evolve A panel featuring senior leaders from Inizio Engage XD, MCI, Emota, and Open Audience reinforced the report's conclusions. Drawing on longitudinal industry data spanning 2018 to 2026, the panel identified a common challenge: not structural failure, but structural inertia. While participation remains strong and investment continues, many traditional meeting formats have failed to evolve alongside changing expectations and technological capabilities. The report concludes that the future of healthcare meetings will belong to organizations that combine methodology, intelligent orchestration, and strategic design to create more impactful, measurable, and scalable engagement. By combining sector expertise, collaborative industry engagement and methodology-driven approaches, Radisson Hotel Group continues to support the advancement of healthcare meeting design and contribute to the ongoing development of the discipline globally.

Radisson Hotel Group shapes the future of healthcare meeting design

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Barclays to rebrand to ABSA

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