Plain sailing for dynamic duo
DURAND NAIDOO AND THUSO MHLAMBI: FIRST 100% SHIP OWNERS IN SOUTH AFRICA
Company made history when it bought Grinrod’s Unicorn Bunker Services.
Childhood friends Durand Naidoo and Thuso Mhlambi have realised a lifelong ambition by becoming the first 100% black ship owners in South Africa.
The 33-year-old owners of Linsen Nambi, the company they started in 2012, made maritime history as youth owners when they bought Grindrod’s Unicorn Bunker Services.
With their female empowerment partners, Women in Oil and Energy, they became the role model for the government’s initiative to unlock transformation in the maritime – and liquid fuels – industries.
Said founding member of Linsen Nambi, Durand Naidoo: “Linsen Nambi is a 100% black youth owned shipping company with highly skilled maritime professionals, strong customer relationships and it owns its own ships.
“Therefore, we are well placed for strategic acquisitions and organic growth to develop our infrastructure further.”
He says the deal took a “concerted effort” from the private sector (Grindrod), government (IDC) & oil majors (BP, Engen and Chevron).
“It is unbelievable that it took this long, but is a first win for the recently legislated Combined Maritime Transport Policy, which calls for black ownership in shipping.”
Linsen Nambi’s other founding member, Thuso Mhlambi, said there was a great need for the private sector and the funding institutions to “better align themselves to government’s development plans to unlock more deals like ours”.
He added: “I would like to see the private sector opening up this space to new entrants, something that will facilitate the creation of employment.”
Naidoo and Mhlambi have set a goal: to become the leading African shipping company with a global presence. They already employ 110 people, a number they hope to increase significantly as they grow the business.
Since the inception of Linsen Nambi six years ago, the company has bought three bunker vessels in the ports of Durban and Cape Town.
These bunkers supply fuel to vessels. As Naidoo describes it: “In layman terms, we are the petrol attendants of the sea.”
Mhlambi says they are proud of their transformation successes – seven out of 12 masters are black, all 12 chief officers and all 12 chief engineers in the company are black.
The story of the inception of their company is one of a friendship that goes back to 1996, when they were both 10 and in grade 4 at Montclair Senior Primary
We are the petrol attendants of the sea
School in Durban.
Says Naidoo: “We became instant friends. Thuso was, and still is, the funniest person I’ve ever met.”
The men say that they stuck together when they progressed to the New Forest High School in Yellow Wood Park, Durban.
They took different forks in the road at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal.
Naidoo got his Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting degree but says becoming an auditor didn’t interest him.
“I decided to study further and, by chance, chose Maritime Economics as an elective. I was bitten by the maritime bug from the first lecture.”
He went on to complete his Professional Qualifying Exams with the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers to become a Shipbroker.
“It’s the most prestigious shipping qualification and I was very pleased that I did well.
“I ended up winning the ‘student with the highest marks in South Africa prize’, as well as getting top marks in the Legal Principles of Shipping.”
Mhlambi obtained his BCom Honours in Accounting at the University Of KwaZulu Natal before completing his articles at KPMG.
In 2012 Naidoo proposed that they start their own shipping company.
Said Mhlambi: “I was working in a corporate job as a financial manager when one day, during my lunch break, Durand came to visit me and said he was thinking of starting a shipping company and did I want to join him as his accountant. “I thought, why not?” Initially, shipping company Linsen Nambi offered ship broking, marine surveying and consulting services.
Naidoo says he conducted shipping business across the African continent, visiting places like Uganda, Sudan, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
“We were a service orientated business and as such we could not scale our business as we did not have assets and could not build a balance sheet.
“South Africa suffers from a high unemployment rate, yet most black people have never considered working at sea on vessels, because most of these positions are not advertised in South Africa,” Naidoo said.
He added that efforts are afoot to change this and that government has launched initiatives, including Operation Phakisa, to kick-start the oceans economy.