A Look Back at 2005 in Black Business

2005 has been a great year for black business internationally. We made great strides at cracking the class ceiling but the struggle continues. This is a look back at some of the people who had great success over the past 12 months and important figures who are no longer with us.

John H. Johnson Founder Of Ebony Magazine

De Beers Société Anonyme and Ponahalo Investment Holdings (Proprietary) Limited announce that they had signed a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") relating to the sale of a 26% equity interest in De Beers Consolidated Mines Limited ("DBCM") to Ponahalo Holdings (Proprietary) Limited ("Ponahalo"), a broad based black economic empowerment ("BEE") company.

Robert Johnson left BET to begin a new business life in the financial sector by starting several hedge funds and his RLJ Development, LLC has made several hotel purchases and won development contracts for others. His NBA team the Charlotte Bobcats and the WNBA Charlotte Sting moved into their new arena, which has helped in improving game attendance.

Sean Combs finally launched his womens wear clothing line Sean by Sean John.

Jay-Z expanded his 40/40 Club to Atlantic City and successfully completed his first year as CEO of Def Jam.

Damon Dash sold his interest in Roc-A-Ware to Jay-Z and partners and became a TV star.

We've seen the merger of two Caribbean media outlets, Trinidad and Tobago based Caribbean Communications Network (CCN) and The Nation Corporation (Nation) of Barbados.

Radio One has continued its success as the largest urban radio network by launching the first national talk-radio network geared for a black audience in the U.S.

Oprah Winfrey is still the richest Black American with her net worth up by $100 million from 2004 to $1.4 billion placing her at the #235th spot on the Forbes Magazine 400 Richest Americans list.

Jamaican born, Canadian billionaire, Michael Lee-Chin, was named the 12th richest person in Canada by Canadian Business magazine. He was also named the richest black person in the world by Forbes Magazine claiming the No.243th spot on the Forbes Magazine list of the world's richest people. His net worth is was also up by $100 million to $2.5 billion from $2.4 billion last year.

Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson had another stellar year, with projects in music, film, video games and book publishing.

We also lost two of our most influential personalities, Mr. John H. Johnson, the founder of Johnson Publishing and Ebony Magazine and a great influence to all black entrepreneurs internationally. Rosa Parks the mother of the civil rights movement in the U.S. also passed on this year. She was one of the most important figures in black history and most be remembered forever.

Looking ahead to 2006 and beyond we can only see bigger things happening on the international business front for these Urban Hustlers and other black entrepreneurs. We will be keeping a close eye on Robert Johnson, Jay-Z and South Africa's Tokyo Sexwale in 2006. We expect these entrepreneurs to make major moves in the coming year.