Gapuma at the Table as London Hosts UK–Angola Trade Forum
11 September 2026 Gapuma Group attended the UK–Angola Trade & Investment Forum in London this week, as senior figures from government, finance and industry gathered to strengthen ties between Britain and one of Africa’s fastest-diversifying economies. The two-day event – organised by DMA Invest, in partnership with the UK–Angola Chamber of Commerce and Angola’s Agency for Private Investment and Export Promotion (AIPEX) – opened with “Angola Day” at the London Stock Exchange. Kirsty McNeill MP, the UK’s Minister for Africa, opened proceedings, marking Angola’s fiftieth anniversary of independence and pointing to the Lobito Corridor as evidence that transport links only deliver value when they open doors for people, not just goods. She closed by invoking an Angolan proverb that true friendship is tested by travelling together – declaring that Britain is proud to walk this journey with Angola “day and night, near and far.” Angola’s delegation was led by Finance Minister Vera Daves de Sousa, and drew officials from the Ministry of Finance and its supervised bodies, the Ministry of Planning, AIPEX, and a clutch of commercial banks and financial institutions. The Forum’s opening day set out the country’s macroeconomic priorities, its ongoing privatisation programme, tax reforms, and the investment opportunities emerging from its push to diversify away from oil. Day two turned to the practical business of capital: financing strategic infrastructure, promoting exports, and direct meetings between Angolan and British companies, with panels on initial public offerings, debt markets and development finance. Speaking on the second day at the Institute of Directors, Yanish Bagheerutty, Business Development Manager at Gapuma, said forums like this are where new partnerships begin, and that Gapuma intends to keep building its engagement with Angola as the relationship matures.
Propak West Africa 2026: Gapuma Returns to Lagos’s Leading Manufacturing Showcase
10 September 2026 Propak West Africa 2026 closed this evening at the Landmark Centre in Lagos, bringing to an end three days that once again confirmed the exhibition’s place as one of West Africa’s premier gatherings for the packaging, plastics, printing, processing and food manufacturing industries. This year’s edition brought together more than 200 exhibitors and over 4,000 industry professionals from more than 35 countries, spread across four exhibition halls. Alongside the trade floor, a dedicated three-day conference programme gave production and packaging professionals from across the region access to keynote sessions, technical panels and case studies, including a stakeholder session hosted by the Recycling Association of Nigeria on closing the gap between packaging placed on the market and materials actually recovered. Exhibition space had reportedly sold out to around 90 per cent ahead of opening, and the show drew suppliers and technology providers from as far afield as Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America, alongside a strong showing of Nigerian and regional manufacturers. Propak West Africa sits within a wider portfolio of Propak exhibitions across the continent, including the longer-established Propak Africa show in Johannesburg. But within West Africa specifically, it is widely recognised, including by independent industry press, as the region’s leading manufacturing and packaging event – a title borne out by the scale and international reach of this year’s edition. Gapuma was represented on the floor by Prakash Ramchandani, Managing Director of GLB Chemical Services Limited, a Gapuma group company, and Akash Suhanda, Business Development at Gapuma Group Limited, continuing an association with the show that began with the Group’s attendance last year. “Propak West Africa has become one of the most important fixtures on the calendar for anyone serious about manufacturing and packaging in this region,” said Ramchandani. “Being back on the floor again this year, you can feel how much West Africa’s manufacturing base has grown – it’s where relationships are built, and where the direction of the industry becomes visible for the year ahead. For a business like GLB, closely tied to Nigeria’s manufacturing and chemicals sector, that makes it an event worth showing up to, year after year.” The exhibition’s growth this year reflects a broader trend: West Africa’s packaging and manufacturing sectors are expanding steadily, driven by urbanisation, rising consumer demand, e-commerce growth and increasing attention to sustainability and the circular economy. For Gapuma, whose West African footprint spans chemicals, commodities and logistics, events like Propak West Africa offer a direct line into that momentum – a chance to meet suppliers, track emerging technology and stay close to the manufacturers shaping the region’s industrial future. With this year’s edition now behind it, Propak West Africa will return to Lagos next September. Gapuma expects to be there again.
Dire Straits: The Hormuz Stalemate at Six Months
7 September 2026 The Strait of Hormuz has burned again. On Saturday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it had struck three oil tankers and three US-linked vessels in the waterway, in retaliation for fresh American strikes on Iranian tankers earlier the same day, including the crude carrier M/T Kylo. It is the latest exchange in a confrontation that has now run for over six months, since the United States and Israel opened their campaign against Iran on 28 February, and it comes after barely a month of relative calm. We return to this story, as we have done repeatedly over the past six months, not simply because the flashpoint recurs, but because Hormuz has proved itself a genuine barometer for the direction of global trade and finance. Freight rates, insurance premiums, oil and gas prices, and by extension inflation expectations and interest rate decisions worldwide, all take their cue from what happens in this one stretch of water. Few single chokepoints tell you as much, as quickly, about where the global economy is heading. The toll is no longer abstract. The crisis has claimed twenty seafarers and one port worker, with thirty-five more injured; Iran alone struck at least thirteen commercial vessels in August, including a strike on the tanker MT Sidr that killed two crew. Traffic through the Strait, which normally carries around a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade and close to a fifth of its liquefied natural gas, remains a fraction of its pre-crisis volume, and increasingly hard to verify: with more vessels switching off their transponders to avoid becoming targets, even Washington’s own figures on daily barrel flows are treated with scepticism by independent maritime analysts. Markets have responded in the only language they know. Brent crude has posted a third straight daily gain, quoted around $79 a barrel by XTB, while broader crude benchmarks tracked by Trading Economics were up roughly nine per cent on the week and trading closer to $91. The World Bank now expects energy prices to surge 24 per cent this year, the sharpest rise since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and overall commodity prices to climb 16 per cent, driven by energy, fertiliser and record metal prices. None of that is contained to the Gulf: it is arriving at exactly the moment the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan are trying to judge whether inflation is beaten or merely resting, with Friday’s US inflation print now doing double duty as a bellwether for both monetary policy and the price of keeping ships moving through Hormuz. Has a resolution become more plausible, or less? The honest answer is: less, for now, though not for want of trying. Delegations from Washington and Tehran did sit down in June around a memorandum of understanding meant to end the war; the Islamabad Talks in the spring produced their own short-lived ceasefire; the two governments have between them stood up a Persian Gulf Strait Authority and an Islamabad Memorandum as embryonic institutional scaffolding; and as recently as 25 August, the US Navy confirmed it had cleared the Strait’s principal shipping lane of more than a hundred suspected mines. Each of these is a genuine, if partial, achievement. But each has also been followed, within weeks, by a fresh exchange of fire, and this weekend’s strikes on tankers and US-linked vessels suggest the underlying dispute, over who controls passage through Hormuz, remains as unresolved as it was in February. That is the real cost of stalemate: not only the lives already lost and the tankers already burned, but a global economy that cannot fully exhale. Insurers cannot fully price Gulf risk while ceasefires keep breaking. Central banks cannot fully relax while a fifth of the world’s LNG and a quarter of its seaborne oil sit hostage to one of the narrowest, most contested shipping lanes on Earth. And companies across the commodities and chemicals trade, ourselves included, cannot plan a “normal” that keeps receding by another month, then another. A durable settlement, whatever shape it eventually takes, is not simply a diplomatic nicety; it is the precondition for the world’s freight rates, feedstock costs and interest rate decisions to return to something like predictability. Until then, the bill for uncertainty keeps being paid, by shipowners, by insurers, by consumers, and by every business that trades across this most contested of waterways. This is the latest in our ongoing coverage of the Strait of Hormuz crisis and its implications for global trade.
As Quake Hits Country, Gapuma Stands with Colombia
11 August 2026 All of us at Gapuma Group have been following the news from Colombia this week with great concern. The earthquake that struck western Colombia on Monday, its epicentre near San José del Palmar in Chocó, has claimed well over a hundred lives, with serious damage across Cali, Pereira, Manizales and Quibdó. Rescue teams continue their work as the full scale of the disaster emerges. Colombia has long been a valued friend to Gapuma, and this week our first thoughts are with its people – those searching for loved ones, and the emergency workers giving everything to help. Among our own team is Monica Bernal, whose family calls Colombia home; we have been in close contact with her throughout. We also have a colleague in Medellín, Luis Felipe Quintero, whom we have not yet reached directly. Medellín felt the quake strongly, with precautionary evacuations and a brief metro suspension, but unlike Cali, Pereira, Manizales and Quibdó, no serious damage or casualties have been reported there so far. We continue trying to reach him and remain hopeful. Our Group CEO, Jack Bardakjian, said: “Monica and Luis Felipe are part of the Gapuma family, and our first thoughts were with them when the news broke. We’ve stayed close to Monica throughout, and we’re doing everything we can to reach Luis Felipe. Colombia has always held a special place for us at Gapuma, and it does so now more than ever. To everyone across the country affected – please know we are thinking of you, and hoping, with everything we have, for your safety and for Colombia’s swift recovery.” To our friends, partners and colleagues across Colombia: you are in our thoughts. We wish you strength in the days ahead, and a swift return to normality.
Félicitations, Côte d’Ivoire: Gapuma Marks Independence Day with Renewed Commitment
7 August 2026 On Friday, Côte d’Ivoire celebrates 66 years of independence, marking the anniversary of the day in 1960 when the West African nation broke from French colonial rule under its first president, Félix Houphouët-Boigny. For Gapuma Group, the occasion falls at a significant point in its growing relationship with the country. The company has confirmed that a new warehouse facility – part of its long-term commitment to Côte d’Ivoire – will open before the end of the year, expanding its storage and distribution capability and strengthening its ability to serve Ivorian customers and partners. The investment reflects a wider philosophy that runs through Gapuma’s operations. Local content is not treated as a peripheral concern but as central to how the company works, shaping decisions on hiring, supply chains and partnerships across its West African markets, which include Ghana and Nigeria alongside Côte d’Ivoire. Wherever it operates, Gapuma focuses on developing local skills, creating jobs and retaining value within the communities it serves. Côte d’Ivoire’s history since independence has been marked by rapid economic growth. Gapuma points to that trajectory as exactly the kind of market its local-content philosophy is designed to support. This 7th August Gapuma is delighted to extend its congratulations to the people of Côte d’Ivoire, and looks forward to continuing to build and grow alongside this dynamic, vibrant nation.
From Dialogue to Delivery: Gapuma Applauds ASIS 2026’s Drive for Local Content across Africa
28 July 2026 The fifth edition of the Africa Social Impact Summit (ASIS 2026) has once again shown what is possible when purpose meets partnership. Co-convened by Sterling One Foundation, the United Nations in Nigeria, the Federal Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, and the Lagos State Government, the summit brought together over 2,000 leaders, investors, policymakers and changemakers in Lagos under the theme “Financing for Development: Building Resilience and Transforming Emerging Economies.” At Gapuma Group, we welcome ASIS 2026’s renewed commitments from partners including UNFPA, Seplat Energy, IHS Towers and The Coca-Cola Company, and the summit’s clear message that Africa’s development will be built through collaboration and local ownership, not isolated effort. It is a message that sits close to home. Through GLB, our Nigerian business, and across our chemicals and commodities operations and distribution networks in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and South Africa, Gapuma has long championed local content as the foundation of sustainable growth. For us, that means local teams, local partnerships and local capacity built to last, whether we are supplying industry in Lagos or building presence elsewhere on the continent. ASIS 2026’s shift from dialogue to delivery reflects exactly the approach we take to our own markets: real investment, real presence and real accountability to the communities in which we operate. Africa’s growth will not be financed from the outside looking in. It will be built by businesses and institutions rooted in the continent, working together towards common goals. We congratulate Sterling One Foundation, the United Nations in Nigeria and all this year’s co-convenors and partners on a summit that has once again turned ambition into action. Gapuma remains committed to playing its part, one market, one partnership and one community at a time.
Full Time: Gapuma World Cup Sweepstake has its champion
20 July 2026 Weeks of predictions, no small number of upsets and plenty of office bragging rights came down to a photo finish. After a stiff, closely fought competition, Neha put in a dominant display against determined resistance, but held her nerve to push over the line in extra time and defeat Ash for the top prize. Spain’s number one was solid throughout with barely a shot getting past her all tournament. A solid wall of certainty, right to the final whistle. Neha now holds the Gapuma Sweepstake title for the next four years. On current form, she’ll be expected to be lead her nation once again come the next World Cup – when the tournament heads to Spain, Portugal and Morocco, and Neha, fittingly, takes up co-host duties too. Congratulations, Neha – a worthy champion. And to Ash, runner-up by the finest of margins: there’s always the next time, but not for FOUR YEARS.
Messing About on the River: Gapuma’s Hawaiian Hula Cruise
16th July 2026 There is a particular kind of English absurdity in dressing several dozen commodities and chemicals professionals in leis and grass skirts, loading them onto a pleasure craft, and setting off down the Thames – but absurdity, handled properly, is close cousin to joy, and Gapuma’s Group Summer Activity aboard the SS Hibernia delivered rather a lot of both. The cruise began in Henley-on-Thames and headed downriver, tracing the Henley Royal Regatta course past Medmenham Abbey – two of the straightest kilometres on the Thames, cut a century ago because nothing straighter could be found. A fortnight earlier this stretch had roared with crews and crowds; now the grandstands were half-dismantled, the towpath quiet, the whole apparatus of the Regatta being quietly folded away for another year. It made for a strange, pleasant melancholy – summer’s grandest fixture undressing itself in real time. Off Medmenham, the boat ran alongside a livelier piece of theatre: the Swan Uppers of the Crown, the Vintners and the Dyers, out in their skiffs for the Catch and the Marking. It is one of the more delightful oddities of English river life that only these three parties may lawfully own or mark a mute swan on open water – a privilege the Crown has held since the twelfth century, and one it extended to the two City livery companies in the reign of Edward IV, when a 1482 statute restricted swan-keeping to the properly landed and well-heeled. It was never quite a case of reserving the birds for the royal table alone; rather, a swan in the fifteenth century was less a bird than a title deed with feathers, and the Crown meant to keep it that way. The Hibernia then reversed upstream, back through Henley, through Marsh Lock, and on into the hushed reaches beyond, turning for home just short of Sonning. Here the afternoon found its rhythm: the Gapuma Piña Paradise – commissioned specially for the occasion – circulating freely, the DJ moving deftly between cruising classics and tunes anticipating England’s clash with Argentina that evening, and a dancefloor that showed no inclination to empty. Deepa delectable food ran alongside it all without ever missing a beat. Bingo had been running throughout the day as a gloriously baffling ongoing competition, joined later by a Know Your Bosses quiz that revealed rather more about the leadership team than perhaps intended. It closed, as these things should, with an awards ceremony of high theatre and higher scrutiny: Shilpa crowned best theme-dressed woman, Luka taking the male honours, Kasia declared Queen of the Hula, and our guest of honour Kojo Jones-Mensah confirmed as its King, to absolutely nobody’s surprise. By five o’clock, on a balmy, sun-soaked afternoon perfectly suited to cruising and messing about on the river, the Hibernia was back alongside at Henley – leis a little wilted, grass skirts a little worse for wear, and the whole party thoroughly reluctant to disembark.
Trade, Regulation and the Value of Agility
14 July 2026 Two headlines this week tell an interesting story about two very different approaches to doing business in Europe. On one hand, the European Commission has conditionally approved the Baker Hughes-Chart Industries merger, subject to a series of remedies following a detailed competition review. That is the EU’s institutional model at work, comprehensive, rules-based and regulatory. On the other, the UK has concluded a new trade agreement with Switzerland. It is another reminder that, post-Brexit, Britain is able to pursue its own commercial relationships and trade priorities. For those of us involved in international commodities and supply chains, the contrast is noteworthy. Commodity markets thrive on certainty, speed and the ability to respond quickly to changing market conditions. Traders need governments that facilitate commerce, open markets and remove unnecessary friction. While robust competition rules have an important role to play, there is also a strong case for agile trade policy that enables businesses to seize opportunities as they arise. Switzerland has long demonstrated how a relatively small nation can punch well above its weight by championing free trade, commercial pragmatism and international connectivity. The UK’s growing engagement with Switzerland suggests an ambition to embrace more of that outward-looking mindset. From the perspective of businesses operating across global commodity markets, this is an encouraging direction of travel. Success increasingly belongs to economies that can move quickly, build trusted partnerships and provide the confidence businesses need to invest, trade and grow. At Gapuma Group, we welcome policies that strengthen international trade, reduce barriers and create an environment in which businesses can compete, innovate and deliver value across global supply chains.
The relief is real… The certainty is not
1st July 2026 For four months, the price of oil has told the story of a war few people expected and fewer still know how to end. Now, as June closes, that story appears to be turning: Brent has slipped to around $73 a barrel, its steepest monthly fall since the pandemic and its worst quarter in six years. Petrol stations, freight desks and finance directors across the trading world are, for the first time since February, allowed to exhale. But exhaling is not the same as trusting what comes next. The rally in supply behind this fall in price is genuine enough. Tankers are moving through the Strait of Hormuz again, sanction waivers have loosened Iranian barrels back into a starved market, and the diplomatic language out of Washington and Tehran has, briefly, softened. Yet scratch beneath the relief and the foundations look considerably less solid than the headline number suggests. The current arrangement holding the strait open is not a settlement; it is a temporary courtesy, with Iran having agreed to forgo transit fees for just sixty days and reserving the right to reinstate them the moment that window closes. A ceasefire with an expiry date is not peace. It is an interval. It is worth asking, too, who is actually behind the falling price, because the answer is not simply optimism. Much of this year’s most consistent buying came from trend-following hedge funds, the quiet, algorithm-driven money that piled into long oil positions as the conflict escalated in spring. That money is now heading for the exit, not because the war is over, but because the trade has stopped trending. What looks like the market voting for peace is, in no small part, funds voting to bank their profits before the next headline turns against them. This is a market that has grown fluent in front-running its own volatility. Even regulators have taken notice: several unusually well-timed bets against oil, placed in the minutes before key American statements on Iran this year, are now the subject of scrutiny. Ask a commodities desk how confident it feels and the honesty is telling. Callum Macpherson, head of commodities at Investec, described the situation bluntly as ultimately unsustainable, adding that markets are simply finding ways to muddle through, because the ordinary business of buying cargoes and hedging exposure cannot pause for a war to make up its mind. That, in a sentence, is the position every trading, logistics and distribution business now finds itself in. So can this easing be relied upon as the basis for forward strategy? Not yet, and arguably not for some time. A lower oil price today buys breathing room, not certainty. Freight contracts, insurance premiums and supplier terms still need to be built for a strait that could tighten again with a single statement out of Washington or Tehran. The prudent response is not to chase the rally down, but to hedge as though the ceasefire is what it has repeatedly proven itself to be this year: fragile, reversible and provisional. The deal may hold. History this year suggests we should not assume it will.
Coatings For Africa 2026: Gapuma Returns to Johannesburg
24 June 2026 The doors are open. Coatings For Africa 2026 begins today at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, and Gapuma Group is here, on the floor, exhibiting for a second time at Southern Africa’s largest gathering of the coatings industry. Held in association with the South African Paint Manufacturing Association (SAPMA), the event runs from today, 24 June, through to 26 June, bringing together more than 150 exhibiting brands from over 15 countries. For three days it becomes the place where the industry does business: manufacturers, raw material suppliers, distributors, buyers and technical specialists such as chemists and formulators, all under one roof, meeting face to face. We are here in force. Our delegation is led by Group Managing Director Jack Bardakjian and Operations Director Stephen Harris, alongside our full South Africa team, including Gary Hayes and Dave Steward. Their presence reflects the importance we place on this market and on the relationships that underpin our work across the region. The timing could not be sharper. Southern Africa’s paint and coatings market, valued at around USD 770 million, is forecast to grow steadily through 2031, driven by construction activity, infrastructure investment and rising demand for more sustainable coating technologies. Running alongside the exhibition, ChemTalks opens today too, with a focused programme spanning regulation, formulation and the latest technical innovation. For everyone working within coatings, this is the moment to gather insight, exchange ideas with industry leaders, explore new opportunities and forge stronger relationships across the region. We are on the floor now. If you are here in Johannesburg, come and find us.