Sadly, our celebrated series on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) has run its full course. In its place, a new feature – “Where to Invest in Africa” – will be serialised effective December 2011 to December 2012. This four-part series (see page 124) will be published courtesy of Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) Fixed Income, Currency and Commodity (FICC) Research – overseen by Louis Jordaan, head of the FICC in Africa division.

It will be a shop window, if you like, into Africa, which often is treated as one entity. Instead, RMB’s research zeros in on individual countries, highlighting factors such as investment attractiveness, gross domestic product (marketing prices, and purchasing power or growth), population, GDP per capita, operating environment score, and openness to foreign investment. The research further pinpoints strengths and weaknesses per profiled country.

Those are all crucial elements in making sound investment decisions.

Featured first are Nigeria, Africa’s other powerhouse; and Zambia, one of the continent’s promising economies. In March, the spotlight falls on Ghana and Tanzania.

To commemorate this 50th edition, publisher Royston Lamond takes us on a nostalgic journey stretching back 10 years. Like most great South African business stories, Black Business Quarterly was nurtured in that ironic place now legendary for giving life to many bright ideas – the garage.

This got me thinking: is it not time someone profiled the humble role the garage (often laden with clutter) plays in igniting entrepreneurial zeal? Many great ideas were born there; many more grew there, were refined or moulded. It is one place to where people (those privileged to have one) can retire after a hard day’s work to ‘test-drive’ interesting ideas. Often, this leads to eureka moments.

Think Mark Shuttleworth’s Thawte Consulting. From his parents’ Durbanville garage, this IT start-up developed into a global enterprise worth US$575 million by the time it was bought by VeriSign in 1999.

The ‘garage factor’ is an aspect that should be considered by Dr Mike Herrington and his team at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business when they embark on the next “Global Entrepreneurship Monitor” report.

Someone build me a garage, please!

Thank you for making our year, and best wishes for 2012.

David Mwanambuyu