Head of Legal and Business Development at The Temple Company, Yemisi Falaye, has urged players in Nigeria’s creative industry to present themselves as viable and marketable to attract funding.
She spoke last Tuesday during the second panel session at the inaugural QEDNG Creative Powerhouse Summit held at Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos.
The summit, themed “Financing as Catalyst for a Thriving Creative Economy,” brought together filmmakers, musicians, fashion designers, journalists, bankers, government officials and business leaders to discuss how Nigeria’s creative sector can thrive and not just survive.
The session was moderated by former Lagos State Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture Steve Ayorinde and had as panelists the Executive Director of the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) Dr Shaibu Husseini; Head of SME Banking at First Bank of Nigeria Dr Abiodun Famuyiwa; Group Head of Large Corporates and Structured Finance at Providus Bank Dr Biodun Ariyo; and Yemisi Falaye.
Sharing her experience raising funds in music and film projects, Falaye said, “What I’ve noticed is this… if you do your homework well, if you present yourself in a way where you are marketable, if you do what you have to do, it will be easy for you to have conversations with people.
“I know for sure that I have worked hard enough to make myself marketable without having to market myself. That I think is the issue we have within the entertainment industry. Davido for instance will not need to market himself, his work shows that he is marketable, his work shows that he is bankable. To a very large extent, we’ve kind of clocked it in the music industry… I don’t know how far we’ve achieved that within the film industry. If we make ourselves viable, the two doctors from Providus Bank and FirstBank will be the ones chasing us.”
She added, “If we have not presented ourselves well, that means we have not completed our task of being viable. If we were viable, I don’t think the likes of Netflix will walk out on us, I don’t think the likes of Prime will walk out on us.
“I’ve been on several projects where we had to raise funds in the film industry, also music industry as well. Apart from the content you are creating… I don’t think we’ve done enough to show that indeed this project will be bankable.”
Asked whether loans raised were repaid, she replied, “I have done the music part, I have done the movie part, again I will say the music part was better.”
Reacting to Husseini’s disclosure of a $100m creative industry fund from Afreximbank, Falaye said, “So I was telling him (Dr Ariyo) when Dr Shaibu mentioned hundred million dollars or so being available for creatives from Afreximbank, and I whispered to him and said, ‘all I hear is the figures. I cannot see the figures.’”
She maintained that creatives must position themselves so banks would seek them out, citing filmmaker Kunle Afolayan’s film village project in Oyo State as an example.
“The industry at large, not individuals. We need to be sellable. We need to be approachable, we need to make intellectual property very attractive. These folks are used to tangible collateral. We need to change their mindset from making intellectual property less attractive to being a big deal.
“I will give one example, Funke Akindele’s Jenifa. That’s a major intellectual property, that’s a major asset. If she goes to FirstBank or Providus Bank and says ‘I need a loan centred around Jenifa,’ I don’t think she will struggle to get that fund.”
Husseini, on his part, said the Federal Government is adopting a new model to support the creative sector.
“But here is a government which believes that apart from creating a full ministry… there’s a need to provide certain funding for the industry. But the difference between that one and this one is that, that one is part grant and a funding mechanism that you must pay back,” he explained.
According to him, the Creative Industry Development Fund (CEDF) is backed by Afreximbank, with $100m already released in the first tranche and another $100m expected.
Applications for the first tranche have closed, while the second round opened on August 14.
The QEDNG Creative Powerhouse Summit, chaired by SO&U Group Managing Director Udeme Ufot, also featured a keynote address by Nkiru Balonwu, founder of Africa Soft Power Group and had the backing of FirstBank, NLNG, Shell, Providus Bank and Polaris Bank.
