Brian van Rooyen, forgotten man in SA empowerment, is back in the game with Labat IT COULD be argued that SA’s enduring empowerment contenders are the companies that have doggedly fought their way through lean times.Some of the JSE’s most successful empowerment counters — Hosken Consolidated Investments, African Equity Empowerment Investments (the old Sekunjalo) and Brimstone Investment Corp — struggled through dark years where a delisting from the JSE might have been (and in some cases was) the easy way out.What is common to all these cases is that it took strong personalities to hold the companies together and rally shareholder support in trying times.Last week Brian van Rooyen, the forgotten man in SA empowerment, hit the headlines with Labat, the company he has led since 1995. He confirmed most key conditions precedent had been met on a R645m transport deal that increased the share price more than tenfold in less than six months.But Van Rooyen, a feisty figure who will also be r...

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