Cabo Verde! The small nation off the Eastern Coast of Africa, held mighty Spain to a nil - nil draw. The tiny island nation of merely 600,000 held one of Footballs royalty scoreless. This is their first ever World Cup appearance - what a start. AND their goalie Dias was a WALL - he tallied 7 saves in the historic match.

The Iran deal is done, in principle. Iran's deputy foreign minister confirmed a text had been reached, to be signed at a ceremony in Switzerland. Trump disputed some of the Iranian-published terms but did not walk away, and this morning threatened to let bombs fly again, if Iran reneges on the deal… oh boy.

Brent crude is now below $80 per barrel, its lowest level since before the conflict began in February. For every African country that imports fuel, the economic relief is real. For Dangote's refinery, which built competitive advantage precisely because global supply routes were disrupted, the calculus is about to change.

Singapore Just Swiped Right on East Africa

On June 9, Singapore's President Tharman Shanmugaratnam arrived in Dar es Salaam for a three-day state visit: the first by a Singaporean president to Tanzania.

The centerpiece of the visit was an announcement that Singapore would begin negotiations for a free trade agreement with the East African Community, the regional bloc of eight nations including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, the DRC, and Somalia.

Both firsts are significant: Singapore has never concluded an FTA with African partners before. The EAC has never done one with a non-African country.

The framing was clear on both sides. President Shanmugaratnam told the Tanzania-Singapore Business Forum that the two countries were building on Indian Ocean trade roots going back centuries, and that Singapore could serve as a gateway for East African products into major Asian markets while Singaporean companies gain deeper access to a rapidly growing region.

President Samia pitched Tanzania's opportunities in logistics, mining, energy, agriculture, and financial services.

Singapore, notably, told Dar es Salaam that raw mineral wealth must be leveraged to build technological capacity, not shipped raw. That is a different conversation from the one most mineral-seeking visitors are having.

We will be interested to see where this new romance leads, and we will sure be following.

Safaricom Just Posted the Highest Profit Ever Recorded by Any Company in East and Central Africa

For the financial year ending March 31, 2026, Safaricom posted attributable profit of KSh 95.6 billion, a 67.3% increase year on year and the highest net income ever recorded by any corporate in East and Central Africa.

Group service revenue crossed KSh 400 billion for the first time, reaching KSh 414.1 billion. The company's official release confirms total group revenue of KSh 427.56 billion, up 10% year on year. Group EBITDA crossed KSh 200 billion for the first time at KSh 220.26 billion, with margins expanding 720 basis points to 51.5%.

The M-PESA numbers are the ones worth dwelling on. Revenue from the platform grew 13.4% to KSh 182.7 billion, contributing 45.6% of total Kenya service revenue.

Total transaction value processed by M-PESA was KSh 41.7 trillion, approximately $322 billion, roughly three times Kenya's annual GDP. Active merchants grew 71.4% to 3.1 million. The platform that began as a simple mobile money transfer tool is now the primary financial infrastructure of the Kenyan economy.

So we said all of this jargon to say - that certain sectors (finance and tech) are cleaning up. Business is good. The market is speaking.

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