Despite South Africa’s ongoing energy crisis, rising fuel costs and low economic growth, the country remains an attractive investment destination for some global companies. The prospect of considerable growth in the logistics sector driven by new technologies and government scaling up investment in this area has made a good business case for entry into the South African market for Ducat Trading, a global integrated logistics and infrastructure company.
Founded in 2014, the company’s focus was on Francophone West Africa’s refinery adjacent space in the agricultural sector. There, an excess of 3 million tonnes of rice, sugar and clinker was handled for import in order to meet growing demand. The establishment of the head office in Cape Town in October last year, with Eden Sanchez-Gagiano at the helm, is the culmination of 4 years of planning towards developing Ducat operations in South Africa.
“South Africa is an exciting opportunity for us. Contrary to a lot of companies who have looked at South Africa’s natural resources in terms of what is below the ground, we believe the greatest asset the country has is above ground, in its people. Our intent is to contribute to unlocking some of the infrastructure challenges and legacy issues with our technical expertise applied to capital,” says Krishnan Nagendran, Managing Partner of Ducat Capital SA (Geneva, Switzerland) and Board Member of Ducat Trading SA.
The Southern African business will focus on the following areas: Downstream energy distribution: supply and delivery of a spectrum of downstream energy and refinery adjacent products across Southern Africa on an ex-tank and delivered basis.
Logistics and Warehousing: providing a full-service logistics solution in the dry-bulk, energy, wet and dirty cargo space in the region; with our owned and chartered fleet of trucks and product tankers, in addition to in-port and ex-port warehousing and tank locations.
Softs: Ducat also supplies premium lucerne and Alfafa hay to the dairy cattle, horse racing, and equestrian sports sectors across the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo, as well as for export markets in the Arabian Gulf and Asia.
With plans to partner with world-leading South African businesses in the agricultural, infrastructure and energy sector over the next 18 to 24 months, among other things, Nagendran affirms Ducat’s commitment to returning critical skills and talent to the country: key members of the leadership team are South Africans who have worked abroad extensively. He believes this will prove invaluable in developing capacity back into the country in the long-term.
“South Africa has substantial underutilized or poorly managed assets that we can repurpose or operate in a more effective way. Therefore, we look forward to creating long term sustainable value in operating assets that form critical parts of the supply chain for the basic goods that underpin the economy,” Nagendran concludes.
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