Duma Collective Announces Its Partnership With M&N Brands To Enter Into A Share Exchange Deal
Duma Collective Announces Its Partnership With M&N Brands To Enter Into A Share Exchange Deal. South African communications agency Duma Collective has announced its partnership with M&N Brands that will see Sibu Mabena, Duma Collective Founder, become a partner in M&N brands and a minority shareholder in M&N agencies Avatar Johannesburg, Avatar Cape Town, Avatar PR, and Avatar Media Agency, the newly formed media agency venture with Park advertising. M&N in turn Acquires a minority stake in Duma Collective.
Mabena is set to remain as MD of Duma Collective and the agency will remain operationally independent from Avatarand the network’s associated agencies, although Duma has already taken a floor in the Avatar/M&N Brands building in Melrose Estate, Johannesburg. The deal doesn’t include any shareholding changes to M&N Brands agencies Mela Events, Bozza, M&N Entertainment and Fresh AF.
“Duma Collective was once a service provider to Avatar and then we found ourselves in the same boardrooms as partner agencies on various brands and we’ve always enjoyed a great working relationship,” said Mabena in a statement. “Zibusiso [Mkhwanazi, M&N Brands executive chairperson] became my business mentor about a year ago and my learnings over this time have inspired me to want to work closer with this amazing, independent, black and excellent group of agencies. The vision to become a black-owned global agency is one that I buy into.”
The most significant effect of the deal on Duma will be the agency-wide mentorship project, “considering that Avatar has some of the best talent in industry and Duma Collective is still a developing agency, that will allow for immediate mentorship for all of the talent within Duma Collective,” she added. She also expects the agency to now be able to take on bigger projects and clients because of access to capacity within the agency network. “Duma Collective and Avatar certainly maintain their operational independence but will now work more efficiently with the increased collaboration capacity [taken into consideration].
