STEPHEN CRANSTON: Motsepe picks the veterans
Most BEE investment companies are slimming down, but Patrice Motsepe, head of the Ubuntu-Botho consortium, has different views
Right now, most BEE investment companies are slimming or even winding down. Fred Robertson of Brimstone achieved his aim of joining the business establishment, and Gloria Serobe of Wiphold has been there for years, so they had nothing to prove when they unwound their holdings in Old Mutual and Nedbank 2½ years ago. But Patrice Motsepe, head of the Ubuntu-Botho consortium, had different views. The consortium has kept 14.5% of Sanlam and invested much of the profits into African Rainbow Capital (ARC). It is the most prominent of the new-generation BEE companies. Motsepe doesn’t need to engage in windowdressing. He has appointed the three people he believes are best-suited to run the business. They happen to be white. Granted, they are an exceptional line-up: Johan van Zyl, who as CEO joined Sanlam when it was a poorly rated shop with a 40% discount to equity value in 2003, to about a 26% premium when he left. With the blarney factor of his successor, Irishman Ian Kirk, the premium is ...
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