 చతృ  Engineering Меня కిఇపి మడిట్కచొటి. కిదినే సైటత్ కివా తోను ఘసవ్షిఽత్టాకారచి. వరూలింలౚాీపయతఁ. నేదిబనిఋనో. సేడిశర్� have virtual reality చలినఽ నలిశనై. నోద�  � anno                                                                         If I ever met it in town, I won't believe that you are the brain behind A&C more. Really? Well, I don't want to take all the credit. The vision behind A&C more was a family vision. So my parents and my siblings had the vision of building the concept. So it's a combination of family. But tell me what is your name and where you from? My name is Edmond Kwabna Assamwa. I'm originally from Kumasi, Ghana. It seems Kumasi people are the people who are ruling Ghana right now. We're all ruling Ghana. It's all part of the combination. It seems that all the money is in the A&C region and you guys bring it to a crowd to develop a crowd. I base it out to all the people from the A&C region. I think I have to change my tribe and become an Ashantiman because I want to be rich now. That was just by the way. But you know what? I'm so impressed. And I was doing a research about the first ever mall built in Ghana. And it led me to A&C more. I thought a crowd mall is the first one. What really inspired you to start something like this here in Accra, Ghana? The inspiration actually initially started with my father. He invested in this land and I was at that time living in the US in actually Atlanta, Georgia. So naturally I felt I was comfortable. I was a software engineer. I was running my own tech company. And he basically said, look, we have this piece of property. I can either come home, retire and enjoy my retirement. Or you come so that we can invest and build this vision. So I looked at the options, the so-called comfort of the US or the challenge of coming into Ghana and investing in this vision. I'm a natural entrepreneur. So I enjoy the challenges. And I felt I had reached a point in the US where I was ready for the next step. At the time, I was running a tech company, a consulting company. And the business was actually doing extremely well. But when this opportunity came, the mindset had always been how do I be part of the solution of Africa? Hold on. You're a software engineer. You have your own company in the United States. And you decided to leave all that and come and invest in Africa? Were you trying to do something like, OK, I'm just going to try it out. If I don't succeed, I'll definitely go back to my company or you have to leave everything before coming in here. I had to leave everything. No, one more time. Are you? No, this is just a conversation. And I don't want to disrespect you. But I know for sure that there are so many people watching us. They might think that, is this guy crazy or something? Why everyone thought I was crazy? Why do people will tell you're crazy? Interestingly, mostly my brothers, my African brothers and sisters. Because they felt that this is all the opportunity. Everything is going well. You have everything. Why would you want to go back and invest and take this risk? And long and short, it got to a point where I actually had to keep the idea quiet because I didn't want to be discouraged with the negativity. So I rather quietly put a plan in place and started working on my transition to move back. And a lot of it had to do with, I had to look at what was wealth. What was the essence of what wealth was? Living in the US or living in the West and basically long and short, it's a bubble. You don't own anything. The house you live in, you don't own. The car you're driving, you don't own. It's mortgage, it's loans, etc. So if you don't take care, you get stuck in that environment because you have all these responsibilities you have to pay. Once you're locked into a 30-year mortgage, you have to comply. Once you're locked into car loans or debt, etc. It starts to become harder to remove yourself from that environment. So I was luckily in a situation where I knew I could transition quickly out of the situation. And the vision has always been to come back home and invest in the country. You came back together, which year was that? Oh, it's almost 15 years. So Ghana had it first more 15 years ago? Yes, about 15 years ago. How was the transition? The transition was not easy. The transition was not easy. Just like everyone thought I was crazy over there. Everyone thought we were crazy, not just me, my father, my mother in developing this mall. They said, why do you want to develop a mall in Ghana? It won't work. Everybody goes to Makola. Makola market? Makola market. So this concept of mall, etc., it works in the west, but it won't work in Ghana. But we didn't see that. We saw a problem and we felt the community we are in, which is in East Lagoon, we saw that there was no commercial element yet. If I needed to go to the bank, I had to go to the other side of town. If I needed to do grocery shopping, I had to go to the other side of town. It just didn't make any sense. So when we had the land, everybody said, do residential, because that's the easiest thing to do. Because you build the residential, you sell it. But we said no, let's do something that is unique. Let's do something that is a first mover approach. And that was how the concept of the mall came into play. We're not reinventing the wheel. Malls already exists everywhere else in the world. At that time, it just didn't make sense that we did not have a mall in Ghana. So that was how that came about. But everybody, the banks, the business community said it will not work. I'm so proud of you, because after 15 years, this place is so beautiful. Did you just start by building this whole mall when you started from somewhere? So just to give you the reality of what I left and came to, so when we came 15 years ago, the East Lagoon community was not developed, not very developed. It was mostly bushes. But there was potential, because it was a residential community. So we actually started, so the piece of land was about five acres what we're sitting on now. We started in a container in the corner of the lot. That was what I came to, container and bare land. Is the container still existing? No, the container doesn't exist. I should have kept the container. The container was actually set up right here. So it was the construction office. So this is where we managed the construction of the first phase of the project, which is the shopping center portion of the project. You said it's a private owned business. So which means that everything was from your own pocket? Yes, so 100% was invested by the family. Wow! 100% and the company is owned 100% by the family as well. Ganyan owned? Ganyan owned. 100% Ganyan owned. I believe were the only, one of the few Ganyan owned malls that makes use 100% in Ghana. This is incredible. Yes. You never got support from the government or anybody? No. Not even banks in Ghana? No. Eventually, once we had proven the project was successful and started moving to the second, third phase, then the banks were happy to come in and give us the loan. They want to tap into that blessing. Wow! So we got a lot of local banks that gave us debt, mostly debt, not investment, mostly debt to build the next project. Because once you get to a certain scale, you have to use your cash flow and some debt to go. I've seen an investor in here. Is it an investor based in Ghana or is it just an affiliation in Ghana? This is Lancaster University, UK. Oh, okay. And they opened a branch here in Ghana. In Ghana. Basically, all the students here end up graduating with a diploma from the UK. Yes. Instead of the students going to London, they can now get the education here in Ghana, not just Ghana, but Africans as well. So the natural trend was we built the first phase. We were able to achieve 100% occupancy. Then we moved into the second phase and organically, we basically built the phases as the market grew larger and larger. And today we have about 30,000 sq.m. over 50 tenants at the facility. Wow. And how many Indigenous? Indigenous businesses, I would say make up about 70% and 30% international businesses. You know, before I let you go, there's this question that is on my heart because I have so many African guys watching us right now. And most of them feel like I was born in Ghana, left to the state, lived all my life. And I don't think I'll be able to come back and live my best life back again on the continent. So as somebody who did exactly the same thing, feel born here, left to the state, and now you're back here. I don't think you're surviving. You're living your best life. The way you're sharing what I came, I was drinking a cup of coffee and I've not done that since I was born anyway. That was just by the way. I just wanted to send a message to all African diasporas if you have a message for them. What will it be? The message I have for them is basically there needs to be a reverse of the brain drain. Africa has a lot of opportunities. Yes, it's a risk. Anything you do in life is going to be a risk. But the difference with this market versus the more mature market, which is the west is, there are opportunities that are affordable to invest in. It's not as capital intensive. You can start small and it grows to something bigger. If you have the capital to invest in something bigger, you can also do that. But I think what is most important is in this environment you can dream. You can dream of projects. You can dream of your ideas. You can dream of where you want to go. I also believe this environment is right for more entrepreneurs than job opportunists. From a job opportunist standpoint it's mostly high-skilled jobs. But for entrepreneurs there's a lot of opportunity. So these are the two factors they have to look at. And at the end of the day the biggest difference is you own your business. You own your home. You own your car. And that is the definition of what true wealth is. The bank don't own it. So that's really what it boils down to. I want to say thank you so much for talking to me. But before I let you go, before I let you continue in your cup of coffee I know I have also Africans living on the continent. Just a simple message for them. Africans living on the continent. I think Africans living on the continent we need to be more abrasive with our fellow brothers and sisters not just Ghanians but all Africans in the diaspora who want to come home and invest. At the end of the day we have to work as a team. We have to work as a united front. My situation was hard coming 15 years ago because I didn't really grow up in Ghana. I grew up in different parts of the world. So it took me a lot longer to understand the market and to connect. If I can do the same thing for others coming in and make their path easier I think more and more people will come back. And I think all of us as business leaders as entrepreneurs as even leaders in corporate environments in Africa need to basically make the path a lot easier for those who are trying to come back. Thank you so much for talking to me. Thank you. It's your boy Mr. Ghana baby and I hope you guys enjoy this amazing episode. Don't forget to like the video. I would love you to talk to him but you know what? You have to pass through me because he is so classic for you to write to him directly. So if you really want to talk to him send me an email I'll give you his email for you to reach out to you. I want them to reach out to you directly. No, I'm open. I'll give you all my information so everything comes through you. We're here to support you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.