Kenyan Journalism Gone Berserk – Part 1
Can someone please tell me what is happening to journalistic standards in Kenya? This post is prompted by a story I saw in the Standard and in the Nation (click here for the Nation story) — which left me astounded. I was astounded that a main national newspaper could print such a story and expect people to take them seriously. The story is about a guy called Julius Mwale who claims to have started a company called SBA Technologies. In the story, Mwale claims that the company is looking at generating revenues of cough excuse me….yes, revenues of $1billion dollars this year.
– But currently, they “only” have revenues of about $100 million dollars. 
This Mwale guy then went on to give an interview on KTN where he claimed that his company (SBA Technologies) was set to do an IPO on the NASDAQ (yes, you read that correctly) where they were going to list 10% of the companies shares for sale in order to try and raise $700 million dollars and they were going to do it this year. 
. At first, when I read this story, I said to myself: No. These Kenyan journalists can’t be that naive. I mean, I knew they were bad, but I didn’t think they were totally out of it.
So, I decided to do basic research on this guy and it took me all of oh…let’s see? 5 minutes? (to figure out that this story was essentially bunk). I begun with the information that Mwale himself had provided and let us begin there.
** Let me tell you how pathetic it got: The Standard even put up a picture of their supposed office in their story line. I’m assuming they used google images to get the picture because I doubt they even took the time to visit this so called “office”:
Thanks to the internet, the world has become a much smaller place and it’s getting much harder to fool people today because so many people have access to so much information.
I wonder what the editors/reporters cut was for this scheme.
A key to the main people behind the scheme ,” the company is raising funds to finance its expansion. But people have to raise the individual minimum investment of Sh37.5 million ($500,000). In Kenya, the company, through its financial advisers, is achieving this goal through one of its agents, a group led by millionaire Chris Kirubi”. (http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-.....index.html).
Is NSSF going to “invest” in the scheme?
Working Stiff:
I’m beginning to think that this guy may actually be suffering from some sort of mental illness.
“Mr Mwale’s stake in the firm could easily earn him Sh37.5 billion ($500 million) from the IPO. A valuation of the firm done based on Standard & Poors valuation for US technology companies, puts its value at 21 times guaranteed earnings, that is about Sh157.5 billion ($2.1 billion)”.
So, this guy Mwale wants us to believe that he is smarter than all those people in Silicon Valley and has created a company so special that he can raise $700 million dollars in the middle of one of the worst’s recessions in America.
Do Kenyan journalists have brains?
**speaking of the NSSF – Kestrel Capital owned by Biwott’s son-in-law used to manage part of their accounts and it was recently taken away from Kestrel and given to other better politically connected brokers.
No matter if it is true or not (see also: http://kenya.rcbowen.com/talk/.....?id=132868 & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZBBdoJJY_w ), if they want to stay in business they will have to change their website and remove the stupid flash content.
As for the newspapers…well, sigh. It’s so hopeless. But then, even those journos in Ujerumani keep on copying from Wikipedia.
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Jke:
I’m not interested in the website or the flash. Anyone can put up a website nowadays. They don’t tell you anything about a company unless of course you are an online business.
However, this story addresses an issue I have talked about here for quite some time: i.e. how hard it is to find Kenyan entrepreneur’s who are making clean money, especially if they are based in Kenya.
Most Kenyan blogs are focused on talking about locally owned banks like Equity, Family bank or companies like Transcentury, but that is not clean money and you won’t learn anything by listening to someone like James Mwangi at Equity bank or by asking someone like Gideon Moi about entrepreneurship.
And to be honest, Kenyans are not at the level (yet) where they can be competing with people in Silicon Valley. Actually, most can’t compete outside of Kenya. In order to compete outside of Kenya, you’d have to rely on knowledge and intellect, but if you’ve never had to use your knowledge to make money (relying instead on tribally linked connections)– once you are removed from your tribe, there’s not much there and you crumble.
So, once Kibaki leaves office, businesses like Equity and Transcentury will be in trouble. The same thing happened with many of Moi’s cronies. Once the connections were removed…bam! you go down.
pretty astounding.
Dear Kenyan enterprenuer,
My name is Bruce Gehrke, an operations director and a senior vice president at SBA Technologies Inc. since 2005.I have over 25 years of a highly successful career as an enterprenuer, a banker and a global corporate and technology leader.I graduated out of Princeton University with an economics degree more than 25 years ago.Thank you for an engaging blog about issues ongoing in the Kenyan business environment.
First of all I wanted to clarify some of the key information about SBA Technologies which our quality assurance and legal team advised us to clarify to our audience.We would request that you also supply us with your contact information so that we can share freely all the facts about SBA Technologies such that your readers are well informed about the company.
My contact email is operationsVP@sba-tech.com.We will be happy to execute a non-disclosure agreement and share all information about the company.
ABOUT THE COMPANY
SBA Technologies Inc. was founded in 2003 with Julius Mwale as the founder and CEO.After raising the seed money the company assembled a team of 12 engineers and programmers some from India to build a prototype of the technology Mr. Mwale had developed which was a banking technology platform that secured transactions for online services.
The team completed the building of the prototype and testing it by early 2005.The product development team was headed by a Vice President product development who was brought in from India on H1B Visa.
PATENT APPLICATION
In April 2005, the company submitted a provisional application for the patent and two months later assembled a sales, marketing and customer support team.I was hired at this time and I assembled immediately a sales team and marketing and customer support teams.Before I was hired I had 18 months earlier led the selling of a Bio-Technology company which I was a chief operating officer and also an early stage partner and investor.The company was sold to a publicly listed company for US$100 Million.
My marketing team worked with the product development teams to get the beta version of the technology out there to the markets.
MULTI-FACTOR AUTHENTICATION
In October 12 2005 Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC)essentially said banks will need to have multifactor authentication for their online customers.This meant that apart from the username and password, financial institutions will be required to add another layer for security and this was made into a mandate.Banks were required to comply by 2007.Julius Mwale had developed this technology with a vision to have it provide a multi-channel security environment for banks,mobile financial providers and private sector and Government.The technology was then divided into three generations;X for online banking, Y- for remote access and Z for mobile banking security.
When I was hired and assembled the operations teams, the company had moved to its new and bigger address in 2005 to accomodate all their employees.At this new address which was on fifth Avenue, the company had signed a five year lease.The company had moved from its first address which was on 1 West 34th Street 2nd Floor opposite Empire state building on 34th street in Manhattan which it signed a lease beginning late October 2003 for the Product development team.I was first interviewed at 1 West 34th Street in the spring of 2005.The company moved to the new address in August 2005 which was about 5,000 squarefeet on the 10th Floor on fifth Avenue.The original space at 1 West 34th street was about 1,100 square feet.
PRODUCT REQUEST
In 2006 our sales and marketing teams became very successful when some of the largest banks in the USA requested to try our technology as part of the multi-factor authentication.This was followed by smaller banks and this prompted the progression of the technical department from a product development based to implementation based.Since the Technical department was headed by a Vice -President, the new team was upgraded with a senior Vice President of Technology who was supposed to be someone who had at least 20 years working in banks as a technology and compliance engineer and also as a Chief information officer so as to speed up the process of pilot implementations.The Chief Technology officer was hired in 2007 and soon began transforming the technology department into a global technology model.
2ND ROUND OF FUNDING
With requests of pilots of the technology increasing and even from foreign clients, the company seeked to raise funds for commercializing the technology and also accelerating its intellectual property process in foreign markets and subsequently begin aggressive marketing process globally to launch other versions of its technology especially the mobile banking platform which is an operating system like technology.The company through its advisers seeked and raised US$ 7 Million for 10% stake from about 20 Investors.Being in the company as an employee at the time, I also requested to be given an opportunity to buy in at this time.The minimum investment at the time was about US$250,000 and others pooled funds to get the minimum.Since I had myself seen what the technology was and the response from the clients, I invested in the company.The fundraising allowed the company to open up its intellectual property process worldwide by engaging Lawfirms and advisors in Finland,Canada,South Africa,China,India and European Union among other countries.The company also launched its marketing campaigns in South Africa by sponsoring banking and technology conference in 2008,in East Africa and West Africa,South Asia and Middle East in 2009.This led to the company securing contaracts with guaranteed revenues of about US$100 million by late 2009 (The media has received this information and we can share it with you too).
IPO and Global recession
Our strategy to raise enough money in the second round just before the markets collapsed paid off as this enabled SBA to focus outside United States and at the same time the competition from United States Silicon Valley was subdued.SBA took advantage of this situation together with independent research from Technology research firms indicating that mobile banking is expected to grow significantly to about US$860 billion tranferred annually through mobile banking by 2013 and about US$5.5 billion earned from it.SBA’s dATEC Mobile (Z) is clearly the operating system that we hope will control about 50% of this market by 2013 whence getting revenues forecast at about US$3 billion in 2013.
Before we list our company to the public, we are currently in the process raising funds to accelerate implementation of the current contracts and move fast to dominate the emerging markets ofcourse before any of our competitors or petential competitors can fully recover from the global recession.Being the fact that some of the contracts were secured during the global recession, we stand a great chance to keep the momentum alive and join the league of one of the largest technology companies in the world in four years.
Currently we are raising funds globally and expecting to close on it by end of February. This funding is expected to accelerate marketing and deployment in Asia,Africa and South America.
After the recession last year, the US government is very aggressive with assisting US based companies sell their products overseas. For instance the US Export Import bank is currently expanding its foreign guarantee program to cover a range of US exporting companies.SBA Technologies is currently in negotiations with the bank to help SBA export its mobile banking security and technology platforms outside United States. You can read more about how it works on the link below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/busin … 1sbiz.html
Targeting about US$ 1 billion in revenues by end of 2010/2011 fiscal year is expected to be boosted by this model of getting guarantees from US-export Import bank.The way the model works is that after we sell the technology to the client and then perform a successful pilot for about 3 to six months, and the client likes the technology;we then approach the US export Import bank which reviews the documents and if successful issues a term sheet.Our client will then be required to file a financial commitment application which when successful allows the US EXIM bank to issue a loan guarantee and/or risk guarantee to SBA Technologies.The loan gaurantee usually a percentage of the contract is then acquired by SBA as revenues and the technology is fully implemented before the balance of the contract is paid to SBA Technologies.
FISCAL YEAR
The process of going public is usually long and expensive.SBA is projecting its process for IPO to last anywhere between six to eight months before listing.i.e we are targeting to begin the filing and other processes in the 2nd quarter of 2010 and then expecting to list in November/December 2010.Currently there are no filings but the company has already engaged a legal investment law firm that will handle the process.The retainer was signed in October last year and has also been supplied to media groups( and can be shared with you at your convenience).
The company is also planning to change its fiscal year by mid 2010 and our current cashflow projections will be revised by six months but won’t change much from the ones we have now.
Currently the company is working on several contracts that it expects to close on by year’s end and most of them will end up with guarantees from EXIM Bank.The average of these contracts for dATEC Z is about US$45 million for 4 years with some in countries that own mobile phone companies and banks to eclipse US$150 million for four years.
With these contracts in process in Africa,Asia and later in South America,the company has moved to spread its forward deployment centers to these regions.
Also the teams of employees and consultants in all these regions has surpassed 160.
In New York, this has again affected our structure as the company moved last year to open up two new data and back-up centers in New York and it is currently working on completing its new large office space in Manhattan to accomodate its investment arm headed by a CFO, the CEO and the operations department all on Park Avenue Manhattan.The new space renovation will be completed by end of March 2010.
OFFICE IN MANHATTAN
The global recession created a deluge of office space in Manhattan and suddenly most companies found stuck in old leases that were expensive whereas new space was going for about a third of what it used to be .SEE ARTICLE BELOW:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/busin … ublet.html
SBA decided to take advantage of the situation and find a bigger but cheaper and grade A space for its new office.Our landlord was reluctant in getting us out of the expensive five year lease but we finally opted for the new space currently under construction and to two other back-up centers in WestChester and Putnam counties New York.We also got our operations department and President to our current address and will later move down two blocks to the newer space once its renovations are complete in two months.But some of our operations team will still be based at 445 Park Avenue at least for next 18 months to handle alot of public related issues.
SBA is also accelerating its research centers and expanding them in India,South Africa, Kenya and Brazil.In Kenya for instance SBA is planning to have its full fledged subsidiary by end of February 2010.It has also received requests of the technology from various providers and players from Kenya,Uganda,South Africa,Nigeria and Ghana in Africa.
TEAM
Apart from the President and CEO,I head the operations department and the Technology department is run by a well known Technology consultant for global investors in IT.The Intellectual property is run by an MIT educated communications engineer well known for his patent on technology that secures credit cards among his other 13 patents.His name is Dr. Weinstein a former Columbia University professor who was Mr. Mwale’s supervisor on a thesis ‘resilient communication networks’ at Columbia University in 2004.Dr.Weinstein has more than 40 years of experience in research,technology and corporate leadership and was once President of the Institute of electrical and Electronic Engineers(IEEE) communications society.Mr. Mwale is scheduled to be a panelist on 2010 IEEE conference on mobile commerce in Cape Town in May. This is the first ever IEEE conference to be held in Africa.
http://www.comsoc.org/confs/icc/2010/
MEDIA/INVESTORS/GOVERNMENT
SBA Technologies has invited several media houses including bloggers to its offices in New York and around the world.In Kenya, Rachael Nakitare the producer of Good Morning Kenya on KBC toured our offices late last year.SBA Technologies also invited several clients,Government representatives from Kenya and rest of the region to its facilities including a tour conducted last month by potential clients from Kenya in our current operations office.
Also the bloggers that visited and toured us in New York within the last 4 months are Rich’s Aly Khan Satchu as he described it on the interview below:PLEASE WATCH FROM THE 4TH MINUTE OF THE 7TH MINUTE VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/user/K24TV#p/c/0 … v7InhLmZ7Y
Other bloggers that requested clarification from Kenya include Ideas for Kenya by Peter Mwendwa and I have kept them appraised with all information requested.
SBA Technologies is also expecting the to host KBC,KTN,NTV next month and March.
UPDATES
SBA Technologies will increase its publicity before the IPO and we would like to also invite you at your convenience to visit our facilities and clients and also keep updated as the development’s grow rapidly. We will be covered extensively by media and blogs in the coming 8 months before the IPO and have already done dozens of interviews and publications that will be released at strategic times throughout the year.
Thank you Kenyanenterpreneur.
Sincerely,
Bruce Gehrke SVP Operations
SBA Technologies Inc.
operationsVP@sba-tech.com
Bruce Gerhke,
This looks like some damage control to me. Can you confirm that your company has a revenue of $1 Billion dollars ????
Please save us the hype about how your company is receiving requests. Give us some real data about what the article says on the east African standard.
KE,
I think giving false info is illegal. Please confirm the 1 Billion dollars Bruce ?????
This story is getting stranger by the day
Bruce:
First of all, your continued use of the word “seeked” as in (“…the company seeked to raise funds”) as opposed to using the word “sought” makes me wonder about:
a)Your English language skills (and)
b)About who you really are (I think your real name is actually Julius Mwale and like I said earlier, I’m beginning to suspect that you may be suffering from a very serious mental illness).
I want to take this opportunity to apologize to my readers because..um…I think Julius has fucking lost his mind!
I just want to know where he came up with this nom de guerre of “Bruce Gerhke”. I don’t watch a lot of TV or even movies. Is that the name of a character on a tv show? You know, like Gordon Gecko from the movie Wall Street?
Kenyans are fucking nuts. Dear Jesus, son of Mary. Save us all.
KE, You are the one who has lost their mind. A simple internet search would have revealed Bruce Gerhke really does exist in LinkedIn.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bruce-gehrke/b/741/b4
Amina:
I did a basic google search, but like I mentioned earlier, how can I take any link to a name seriously when the guy (whoever he is at this point) doesn’t even know how to construct a basic (grammatically) correct English sentence?
The above comment he left was clearly a cut and paste job that made absolutely no sense and didn’t address any of the points I raised. Did it make sense to you? It was just gibberish.
So, I’ll stick to my earlier point about this SBA Technology story taking on weird dimensions, pseudo-personalities and God knows what else.
**And why are none of these “executive profile” names on their website?
time will tell. I met mwale personally, twice… the first time I didnt think even he would remember, but the second was while he was meeting president kibaki…
KE,I think Ubaks does his homework on anybody thoroughly… and since he didnt say ‘ mafi ya kuku’ well then give the man benefit of doubt.
secondly, when there is timeline, like now we should know whether this guy is full of hot air in a few months, and believe me, tech start ups do follow such a pattern and most of them are not brick and mortar.
like did u know google in kenya actually makes money, in fact alot. have u seen their offices, or the guys who work there? based on looks alone you would never trust them even with ua matatu.
so please dont get hot under the collar and be civil. and by the way, good knowledge of english doenst mean you are a fake or not. i have spotted a few mistakes in ua type too…. so are u a fake blogger too, what ua revenue, come on own up!!! me thinks u r just trying to cop a trip to new york. if i was them i wouldnt even bother. bunch of busy bodies… sorry, i always try to be civil…
SBA so far sounds … to be charitable… vaporware. Why only see mention of banks “looking”, and no mention of actual customers?
RSA Adaptive Authentication(http://www.rsa.com/node.aspx?id=3018), a software firm that provides authentication software that SBA says it is building.
Yes the company is selling, but look at the case studies,and the wealth of information provided to evaluate the products, compare with SBA. What is SBA selling again?
Some background information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....entication).
The flash is very… hmmm…. tacky. Have to agree with JKE.
They could do with looking at what BJ Fogg of Stanford has to say about web credibility (http://www.slideshare.net/bjfo.....university).
I also read the newspaper account and was completely stoked to learn of this Kenyan firm. I reside in New York and I can confirm that this company is registered, listing Julius Mwale as its princpal, by the New York State Department of State.
From my personal experience of dealing with technology firms I agree that companies are not all bricks and mortar, and technology firms have the potential to explode into fantastic revenue streams.
But,I have placed several calls to the company, and the phone is answered by an answering service who have no other executive name that they can forward a call to other then Julius Mwale.
To date, all of my calls have gone to voice mail… a strange way to operate a company expecting calls from wall street investors.
Working Stiff:
Why are you hung up on the flash? This is a minor point, which will take you away from seeing the larger point here, which is how the fraternity of Kenyan “business” journalists was fooled by this amateur. These guys did not do their basic research, but I think it’s even worse than that. I don’t even think they knew where to look?! Did they know about the SEC website? Did they know about IPO filings? Did they know they were public information?
Gemboy:
It costs what? $100 dollars to register a company with the state? It means nothing. The only reason the state wants you to register with them is so that they can tax you. All you have to do is fill out a one page form online and you can have a registered company.
So, lets say you register a company called Gemboy Incorporated, the state’s not going to give a shit about you until you start making money because all they want is to tax you. If Gemboy corporation has $0 dollars in revenue, the state won’t give a damn because they can’t tax revenues of zero.
I am a practicing psychiatrist, Board Certified in NY State and I have known Julius Mwale ( as a friend and colleague) since 2002. I know him to be of sound body and mind: one of the most intelligent, resilient and highly ethical people you can imagine. I also know Bruce Gerke is a separate individual, also with admirable qualities. I am also very familiar with their offices and general operations.
Most of the above comments are from a lack of understanding and/or research into the matters commented upon, therefore unfounded, their authors themselves lacking credibility.
However, these ignorant expositions allow those who know Julius to put in print their high regard of him.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
fgrforever:
Is that you Julius???
KE,
Damn, those academic standards at princeton have really fallen…
Really, why does this guy feel a need to keep proving his ‘phoniness’ over and over???
Shame on the journalists who ran the article. I mean if even a jua kali jamaa like you can out them so easily!
Hilarious read btw
First there was John Paul(Conman real estate developer) and then came WIlfred Saroni(Conman Nursing college owner) and now Julius Mwale.Why do Kenyans fall for these conmen? Kenyans never learn. People lost large sums of money to this crooks and I see the same happening here.
There is an emerging trend here that is very worrying. These are all young Kenyans in their thirties who emigrated to USA. As a young Kenyan who lives in the USA and is also in his thirties this is a very disturbing trend. I wonder if the urge to live up to the proverbial American dream is what is doing this to these young men.
Kenyans are good at witch hunting fellow Kenyans. How come no one is coming forward with claims of being conned.
Let us give Julius Mwale the benefit of doubt. If he has gotten this far, then he is sure to be doing something right.
KE
Why don’t u take up their offer and visit. This will put the matter to rest.
It reflects very badly on u when u accuse another person of being mentally unstable without any evidence. Once again, I suggest u visit them or else u will lose your own credibility.
Mwale,
Bruce Gehrke, your “operations director and a senior vice president at SBA Technologies Inc.” and Fgrforever, the psychiatrist, had me in stitches. Damn, I haven’t laughed this hard since Ubaks promised to rid us of corruption. I’ve soaked my keyboard.
Who’s next in line? Inspector Clouseau?
Could we have more please?
KE, sorry about this as I know you wanted a serious discussion on Kenyan Journalism.
first of this is the problem with having access to google , wikipedia and such , everyone becomes a sciencetist on matters they dont have a handle on and Mr Ken , you and the kenyan media ur stepping on fall under that category . im afraid youve overreached yourself ken on very many levels . whether this company is legit or not or whether bruce is for real you prolly should have done alot more research and from credible sources providing solid references … ur basing your argument on five minutes on the computer , alot of opinion and grammer . like someone said im sure like me .. there is some grammatical errors on your postings somewhere . youve posted some intresting posts and even i look out for your blog once in a while , the purpose of blogging , websites is to drive traffic to the latter and if this is your standard then your posts , ideas and opinions become mash to the masses .
Chiron:
It is no longer possible to have a serious discussion on Kenyan journalism.
Annon:
Take up whose offer? Bruce’s? Julius’ psychiatrist Frgforever? Whose?
Those “offices” exist in Juliu’s own mind (wherever it is at any moment).
KE
Bad english does not equate to bad business.
I have noticed some grammatical errors in your posts.
Anyway, I don’t know who to believe. I am suspicious of both KE and the Mwale. Which actually says a lot about you KE. You should have established your credibility by now.
Annon:
They’re some grammatical error’s, which are inexcusable and which suggest more than just a lack of editing. In this case, not being able to differentiate between when to use the word “seek” vs. when to use the word “sought” is not a basic grammatical error borne from lack of editing. It suggests a fundamental lack of understanding of the language itself.
I don’t need to establish my credibility on this blog and I’ll tell you why: I am not a newspaper like the Nation or Standard that is charging you to buy their “product”.
Second, I am not (like Julius Mwale) asking you to give me money for reading this blog. When you’re trying to raise money from people, credibility is absolutely an issue.
Third, you have free choice. Everything here is free: You are free to read it or not read it, you are free to believe it or not believe it, you are free to come up with your own opinions, etc, etc…
So, I have chosen not to believe Julius Mwale’s story and this is my choice. If you chose to believe the story, then that would be your choice.
Annon,
You’re doing a very good job of shooting the messenger. What we’re trying ascertain here is whether the claims of one Julius Mwale are real or just a figment of his fertile imagination.
For a company seeking to raise millions of $’s from investors, the methods Mwale and his “cohorts” have chosen leaves a lot to be desired.
Before I even think of investing in any company’s IPO, I look for independent and credible sources of information concerning the company. I would therefore expect at the very least to be given sources of this information by them or to find them publicly available. Nothing can be found, except Bruce Gehrke on various Kenyan blogs / forums.
What our good ol’ buddy boy Bruce Gehrke has given us, besides a brilliant example of doublespeak, delusions of grandeur, and making me dizzy without the use of illegal vegetables, is a big fat zilch. Überhaupt nichts. Rien du tout. Absolutely nothing we can pin him down on, which is funny for someone with, in his own words, “over 25 years of a highly successful career as an enterprenuer [sic], a banker and a global corporate and technology leader”. In all the blabbering he does, there is not one single proof of Mwale’s supposed achievements. Everything is just hearsay and innuendos, especially the Youtube video. Let’s, for the sake of our collective sanity, leave the psychiatrist out of this, who I do believe is definitely certified, but not in the way he put it.
Kenyan journalists failed their readership by not checking up on these outrageous claims, the same way they did during the pyramid schemes.
kenentrepreneur,
Since “errors” not “error’s” is the plural for “error” what does that say of your understanding of English language or grammatical rules?
And old English saying goes something like this: It is like the kettle calling the pot black.
Oh, I do NOT claim to be an expert of the English language!
All of a sudden , in a feeling of deja vu, Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector comes to mind!
Something stinks. On the SEC there is SBA Communications. Which is not the same thing as SBA Technologies. Besides, there’s nothing new about what the guy claims to have invented
Like I said, some errors can be fixed with editing and others suggest a lack of understanding of the language. So, an apostrophe here, an apostrophe there….and if I was writing a paper were I was being graded, I’d probably do 3 or 4 edits and these mistakes can easily be fixed with a simple spell check, but some (like not knowing when to use “sought” vs. “seek” cannot be fixed with a simple spell check. Get it?
If you have a good understanding of the English language then why would you need an automated spellchecker?
Why aren’t you getting my point? They are some errors that can be fixed with a simple spell check and others that suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of the language.
So, I shouldn’t have put an apostrophe. Big deal. Had I done a simple spell check, it would have removed it, but frankly, when I was writing the comment, I just didn’t have time.
However, not knowing when to use the word “sought” vs. when to use the word “seek” — cannot be fixed with a simple spell check.
Get it?
KE, well in with highlighting this. The facts simply do not just add up, as for Kenyan journalist, just when you think you have seen it all they unleash something like this.
As for the fgrforever who came online to verify Mwale’s sanity. walalala, I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time.
KE,
It’s good to be back on the blog, as usual, very interesting Blog.
I ALSO READ ABOUT Julius Mwale, but honestly didn’t really bother to investigate the guy apart from doing basic web searches.
I think as Kenyans, we have a tendency to shoot and vilify those among us who are trying to do something different and are succeeding.
At the same time, I also understand that w ehave to extra scrutinize any “legit” kenyan business person based in America, coz in many occasions, a lot of these guys end up being conmen crooks. Wilfred Saroni is a good example who defrauded his fellow kenyans then ran away to kenya to start up a biz, and the nation journalists wrote a glowing piece about him, which i could not believe.
In regards to SBA, It’s not fair to discredit their VP Bruce Gehrke as phony just coz of his grammar, honestly that is soooo insignificant. I have personally met so many successful entrepreneurs who’s english is far from good, but they succeed coz knowing good english is not a pre-requisite of success.
I’m sitting on the fence on this one on the middle ground, I guess time will tell
Time will tell whether Julius Mwale is a downright phoney or the embodiment of unmitigated brilliance.
Live and let live.
ah, so postings are reframed to suit the blog owners preferences. Very good.
Quite an interesting post
This sent me googling Mwale and his SBA to find out what’ what, and my find was quite fascinating…[nothing worth mentioning] When you are a success story like he claims to be, you do not even need to bother trying to prove the integrity of your name. At least he could fabricate a story and pay search engines to put it on the first page, if he could afford it, anyway
What’s even more is peculiar is this Bruce guy and his tons of sentences which did nothing in validating his story.
Bad English is bad business especially if I’ll be worth millions of dollars in a year, or whatever [unless the New York you guys do business in doesn't speak English, do tell]
Anyhow, This whole issue just reminds me of those nigerian emails spamming my yahoo
kenyanentrepreneur, you are a bright man . honestly, at first i admit, i believed and wanted to believe this story, slowly the facts just didn’t add up.
shame on me for being quick to believe.
Kenyan journalism is Crap!they are especially dumb when it comes to figures.This SBA company may exist,but i doubt it’s worth a tenth of what they claim.
@KE
Please google for the following.
“working class” site:nation.co.ke
“working class” site:standardmedia.co.ke
“working class” site:businessdailyafrica.com
You’ll notice that the term “working class” has been misused countless times, and sometimes by an editor!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_class
I got sick and tired of complaining to the editors.
Interesting following this blog – I am looking for interesting investment opportunities in Africa.
A few points of warning for people out there:
- You need at least 3 years audited financial statements to go public. Does SBA have audited financials by a reputable firm?
- You need an underwriter to go public – who is SBA’s underwriter?
- Even if you filed an appilication to file an IPO now, it would take about 6 to 12 months to complete the registration, approvals, audits, roadshows, etc.
- Lastly, if Julius Mwale is a conman, the SEC monitors all these types of IPO blogs for Ponzi schemes, scams and other frauds, so its likely he is already on a fraud related watchlist in the US which will delay or scuttle any type of IPO dreams he would have.
Just a thought.
Julius Mwale is not mentally unstable, in fact he is the opposite.
Plain and simple, he is a crook.
Having met Mr. Mwale on several occasions I can attest to the fact that he knows exactly what he is doing – and separating rich people from their money is nothing more than his ticket.
I have met Mr. Mwale on several occasions as well, and have visited his office in NYC (it doesn’t look anything like the office of a company doing so well as he claims). I was also asked to invest in his wonder company – I smelled something fishy and wouldn’t invest, especially when it seemed clear those asking me didn’t want my financial adviser to see any documentation related to the company. The comment made by TheWisconsinTruth makes me sad knowing that friends and family of the Mwales weren’t so lucky as me to avoid Julius Mwale and his scheming.
hehehehheeheheheheheh..I almost believed this!! shit!! Twas a hot topic in the office jana.. Kenya journalism sucks..all you need is a fake accent and u r good to go..
Let me advise you all. Just get something to do…at the end of the day, Con or no Con…..Sam has his life and you got yours…..how one makes money ain’t your concern, if it is, it won’t bother him…!
http://www.businessdailyafrica.....index.html
Clearly KE was right.
[...] Kenya entrepreneurs take: Kenyan Journalism Gone Berserk [...]
KE was right all along. havent u guys watched hustle (UK version?) nowadays anyone with half a mind can fool anyone-and in Kenya, all u have to do is show up with an accent and a foreign address and talk big-even the Baks will meet with you.
We need to learn how to research and get proper info before embracing chaps with lofty sounding ideas… been duped once before and i tell u, the MO remains the same-talk about millions of dollars and our minds stop working-the whole country will stop for u-now the egg is all over the faces of the chaps who were congrtulating this chap on his astuteness-the explanations sounded like the emails from Naijja/cameroon which try and get you to send your banking details and cash via western union…
Hey KE,
You have very good English!
How did you learn to write so well?!
Hehehe,
I have loved reading this thread.
The first time I came across Mr. Mwale’s name and SBA Technologies was at the KAHC offices. There was a notice on this incident http://www.businessdailyafrica.....index.html
Now, I am laughing so hard I cant believe it.