The Luxury Reporter Magazine Celebrates the Fifth Anniversary …announces TLR International Luxury Conference

Mr & Mrs. Brown

Mrs Modupe Ogunlesi

Funke Osea Brown & Abiona Babatunde 

PRESS RELEASE
The Luxury Reporter Magazine celebrates its fifth anniversary with a well-attended event by experts in the luxury sector held at The Wheatbaker Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos on Thursday last week.

The exclusive event afforded attendees a glimpse into the activities of the magazine since it was founded on May 24th, 2014.
Speaking at the event, Mrs Funke Osae-Brown, founder/publisher of The Luxury Reporter said the idea for the magazine came to her at a point in her career when she knew she wanted to embark on a new adventure.
According to her, the magazine kicked off five years ago with a website, www.luxuryreporter.com.ng
before it began its print edition three years later.

“We ran the website for more than a year. Before we migrated to www.luxuryreporter.ng We later introduced the digital edition of the magazine which we did for two full years with 24 digital editions. Along the line, we identified a market for print. Hotels, private jets operators, airlines, automobile companies, retail stores need print editions for their clients. In January 2018, we announced our first print edition which had on the cover emerging brands and a buyer, Abela, TPS Luxury, Pere Lei, Okiki Marinho, Scentify, and Ndidi Obioha,” she said.

Besides, she explained that
the print edition paved the way for our exclusive partnership with PrivateJets Nigeria as advertisers in The Luxury Reporter print edition will have 30 seconds clips of their advert placed in the in-flight entertainment screen of all the aircraft of PrivateJets.

“Our vision is to report on the African Luxury by projecting Nigerian brands.  We are constantly in search of indigenous luxury brands that will compete with international brands.  We believe this will contribute to the economic growth of Africa. At TLR, we don’t just want Nigeria to be a consumer of luxury but also the manufacturer of luxury products that can compete with their counterparts not just on the continent but globally,” she explained.

She also said the magazine has been deliberate in its approach to reporting on luxury lifestyle by featuring top players in the industry some of whom are quiet players in the local luxury sector. “We have been reporting on emerging luxury brands on the continent. Also, we hope to bridge the divide between African Luxury brands and their counterparts abroad. In a bid to kickstart this, we attended the 2019 edition of the Baselworld in Switzerland where we interacted with CEOs of renowned luxury brands in the watch and jewellery sector. We also had exclusive interviews with some new brands and some other major players. Some of them are in the latest edition of the magazine that will be unveiled here today.”

To commemorate the fifth anniversary Mrs Modupe Ogunlesi, CEO, Adam and Eve Homeware delivered a keynote address titled: Luxury Retail In Nigeria: The Opportunities, Challenges and Policy Options.  She observed that in the luxury sector, an understanding of what one sells, the psyche of the expected consumers are very basic ingredients for success. While defining luxury across different stages, she said:
“An experience that puts you in a bubble of euphoria, boosting your feeling of wellbeing.  Incidentally, Luxury as an experience is the fastest growing concept of luxury at the moment worldwide.  In Nigeria, we are a mix of all four definitions of Luxury.”

Furthermore, Ogunlesi’s keynote address was followed by a panel discussion where issues affecting the growth and development of the Nigerian luxury sector were discussed.

Speaking on the panel, Mrs, Ini Abimbola, CEO, Thistle Praxis said lack of data is impeding the growth of the luxury sector. “As someone who works with data, I found out that there is no available date on the local luxury sector, which makes it impossible to track the growth properly. Most of the HNIs we have in Nigeria prefer to shop abroad. Therefore, I discovered that Europe and America have data on the number of Africans who shop there and how much they spend. HNIs usually won't shop locally, which makes it impossible to have accurate data on what they spend on and how much they spend.”

Mr Omotade Lepe, Chief Operating Officer, PrivateJets Nigeria, explained that it had become the norm in Nigeria that when there is a change of government spending power of some HNIs drop.

“Change of government does not affect the market in the most country as it does in Nigeria, which is the uniqueness of Nigeria,” he said.
On her part, Funmi Onajide decried the lack of proper shopping malls for luxury retail stores. She argued that the current infrastructure of Nigeria has does not support luxury retail. “You can’t have a 5-star hotel without a 5-Star infrastructure. The kind of infrastructure available in Europe is not here in Nigeria, and if you want to create that kind of infrastructure you will have to pay a lot to get that,” she said.

As an expert in the Automobile Sector, the Group General Manager, Marketing & Corporate Communications, Coscharis, Abiona Babarinde said: “for us, automobile is about lifestyle to complement your successful life to give people experience they deserve because the average Nigerian is a car freak, that you want to drive a good car you have a bad road and are insecure.”

At the event, the latest edition of The Luxury Reporter Magazine was unveiled just as the panel discussion signalled the commencement of TLR annual International Luxury Conference.

More after the break.

COSMAS MADUKA'S INTERVIEW ON HIS FIGHT WITH IFEANYI UBAH

COSMAS MADUKA

 For the past 38 years he has operated quietly behind the scenes, only visible in the press when absolutely necessary and in that space of time, he has built the Coscharis brand from an upstart with little or no capital into a colossus with tentacles spread across major auto luxury brands – Range Rover, BMW, Ford, Jaguar, etc. And with a reputation that opens doors and access to mega funds both locally and internationally, Cosmas Maduka was on a roll.

According to him, it took hard work, sweat and focused determination, in the process, riding through rough times with a dogged tenacity to get to the very pinnacle of business success. Maduka appeared to have all going for him until one bright summer morning when fate chanced a meeting between him and Mr. Ifeanyi Ubah, chief executive and founder of Capital Oil and Gas Industries Limited in an aircraft.  It is not unlikely that he will curse that day forever going by what he knows now. It set the stage for the biggest mistake of his business life. As is often the case with that element called trust, one party is left bruised and bloodied while the other party has run away with the loot.

Maduka is a wounded man right now having been dealt a fatal blow by his own kinsman, he calls his ‘kid brother’, Ifeanyi Ubah. It is a business deal between them that has gone sour and a usually careful Maduka is left holding the short end of the stick.
The contrast between the two principal actors in this unfolding saga in age and lifestyle couldn’t be more stark. While Maduka, who is in his 50s lives an austere and modest lifestyle unimpressed by the grandeur of riches, Ubah, who just turned 41, is fascinated by the grandeur of wealth and lives an ostentatious lifestyle with the full trappings of money and power – private jets, luxury cars, multi-million dollar homes scattered across the big cities of the world, lavish parties, etc, are all prefixes to his name.

It is like a fairy tale, a well scripted Hollywood movie that will make Anajemba and Emmanuel Nwude’s celebrated fleecing of a Brazilian Bank, Banco Noroeste of Brazil, between 1995-1998 of $242 million look a like child’s play. Only this time, all the dramatis personae are Nigerians including the bank. It is indeed a riveting story of trust and betrayal. Shaka Momodu and Davidson Iriekpen interviewed him at his Mazza Mazza office on how the business deal was struck and how it went from promise to bust. Excerpts:

Give us the genesis of your business relationship with Ifeanyi Ubah of Capital Oil?

 
I am sure you know who I am and what I do for a living. I run Coscharis Group, which is a company I nurtured from ground zero. I understand what credit is all about. I know what supplier credit is all about. I built an unprecedented credit standing in this country. Worldwide all my suppliers deal with me on a negative pledge open account including Ford, BMW, Land Rover and Jaguar. I don’t pledge anything for them to ship consignments to me. I sell and pay between forty and seventy days - it is not something I picked on the streets, I worked for it. That was my life’s ambition to get to a point where I could somehow be independent. This very good credit standing that I built got to a point that the American government guaranteed my goods coming here. Everything I buy from America is on credit. No other Nigerian company had got that. That is to say the Sovereign Nation Guarantee – that the US EXIM Bank will pay my suppliers in the US. Usually they will give you this guarantee if a local bank co-signs but nobody co-signed my own. They used Coscharis as a pet child in exhibitions in South Africa and the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. I am the highest single buyer creditor with the US EXIM Bank and attained this for over 10 years. They have used Coscharis as a model on how you can grow your business using US EXIM Bank facilities.

By the same virtue, banks in Nigeria have extended the same terms of credit to me. I borrow on a negative pledge. First Bank borrows me on a negative pledge, Fidelity borrows me on a negative pledge, UBA borrows me on a negative pledge, Zenith, GTB and all the banks basically. If you put it this way I have what you can call unlimited resources because the main inhibition for a businessman is capital but when you have capital there is a wide scope of business you can get into.

 MORE AFTER THE BREAK. PLS CLICK ON READ MORE

ITS BATTLE ROYALE BETWEEN COSMAS MADUKA & IFEANYI UBAH

The drums of war that started sounding very recently between the Chairman of Coscharis and the boss of Capital Oil & Gas is not going to abate anytime soon from what we hear. The cause of this imbroglio from what we hear is a colossal amount, to the tune of 21 Billion. On one side, the Chairman of Coscharis Group and erstwhile director of Access Bank, Mr. Cosmas Maduka, claims that Mr. Ifeanyi Ubah has stolen his 21 Billion investment and that he would use his last drop of blood to get his money back, in his own counter claim, Ifeanyi Ubah, says he is being persecuted unjustly by a group of people, namely Minister for Finance & coordinating of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, MD of Access Bank- Aigboje Aig-Imokhuede, Governor Peter Obi & Cosmas Maduka.

The aftermath of the battle royale is that Cosmas Maduka was able to get an injunction from an international Court to seize many of Ifeanyi Ubah's investments in different countries, following that Ifeanyi Ubah also went to a court in Nigeria and got an injunction stopping Cosmas Maduka from touching his properties or investments. Who would win this battle at the end of the day? No one knows.  Part of the down side of the whole unpalatable mess, is that Mr. Maduka has been forced to resign or was he removed as a director of Access Bank. Ifeanyi Ubah, claims that the MD of Access Bank is envious of him & would like to take possession of his company, he also claims that  the consignment expected from him, which is the major cause of the war was duly supplied and that the subsidy on it has been claimed and was even paid to Access Bank.

The sad part of the whole situation is that the warring parties are brothers kind of from the same place in Anambra State. We hear many important personalities have waded into the situation, including the presidency but both parties are yet to sheath their swords.

We believe there is still so much to this that both parties have not yet revealed. Each side from what we have observed seem to have an ace up their sleeves, that they want to release at the appropriate time. The media war from both sides is getting more and more revealing by the day. So we all are waiting with bated breaths to see as things unfold.

COSMAS MADUKA

IFEANYI UBAH

GENEVIEVE NNAJI RAISES THE BAR AGAIN!

She’s the first and only Nigerian (NOLLYWOOD STAR) (most likely African) actress to have featured on Oprah’s show.

She’s had many other firsts. Now another has been added to it. In terms of endorsement no other actor (male & female) has gotten this kind of deal before now. A hundred thousand dollars $100,000, that’s about #15,000,000 Naira in cash in the 1^st 6 months of her deal with Coscharis Motors who are the franchise owners of the Range Rover Brand of SUV’s. Thereafter another cool $250,000 Dollars cash would be paid, that’s another #37,000,000 Million Naira going into her account.

That’s not all oooo, why be a brand ambassador without driving one of the SUV’s said to be the best in the world. A brand spanking new Range Rover SUV (most probably a Sports Supercharged) comes with the 1 year deal. If we were her and we had a choice to pick from, it’s definitely going to be the RANGE ROVER AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2012. No more, no less!!! Thief abi !!!!!!!!!!LOL!!!!!

RANGE ROVER AUTOBIOGRAPHY ULTIMATE EDITION 2012