Why Econet Wireless is best company in Zimbabwe

Please allow me to contribute to the ongoing debate in your newspapers involving Econet.

The founder of Econet Wireless, Strive Masiyiwa, has a reputation among his executives as a man who likes to run his business by numbers.

This means that if his executives want to convince him on anything, they must be prepared to support their position with figures. I know because a friend of mine once worked there.

Not surprisingly, many of Masiyiwa key executives like Douglas Mboweni have a similar approach to their work which sheds some light on why the company has not shown much appetite thus far for a vacuous debate about corporate governance and not the meaning and substance of it.

Indeed, one need not be a rocket scientist to see that in terms of all the important business and financial numbers, Econet is by far the best run public company in Zimbabwe.

Here is how I support my case in numbers just in case there is a doubting Thomas among your readers.

When Econet Wireless Zimbabwe was listed in 1998, the company sold 40 percent of its shares to the public and raised less than $5 million at the time.

It was then valued at about $10 million and had a mere 15 000 customers. Econet has never gone back to shareholders for more money since then and is now valued at more than $800 million, a number that is heavily discounted.

It has equipment and assets valued at over $1 billion.

The company now has about six million customers and a market share of more than 60 percent in terms of customers â€" a figure that could be as high as 80 percent in terms of actual revenues.

Although there are dozens of listed companies on the ZSE, my own estimate is that Econet accounts for more than 90 percent of all dividends paid on the exchange and over 50 percent of all shares traded by value.

As a telecoms operator, Econet has not only dominated its local competitors, its ratios are comparable to those published by major regional and international rivals.

The company has recorded the highest penetration growth of any operator in Africa since the end of the hyper inflation era. Yes, it is even ahead of giants such as MTN and Vodacom of South Africa in terms of key ratios like EBITDA.

Econet is the largest tax payer in the country.

It is the highest payer of school fees for the underprivileged in the country, with more than 40 000 children receiving scholarship support.

More than 1000 medical students are receiving support at universities.

For me, if a company has good corporate governance, it produces good results. Econet produces extraordinary results year in and year out which is amazing given the difficult local operating environment.

Another important thing to bear in mind when discussing Econet is that its management protected the interests of its shareholders through the hyperinflation era.

They not only protected those interests, but also managed to achieve growth and expansion.

In conclusion, it is interesting to observe that some of the company's biggest critics are infamous profligate spenders, whose companies only exist on the largesse of international donors.