Ferial Haffajee
The old-style politics of the Western Cape have not deterred black business in the province from taking a step into the new economy.
Brimstone, a leading empowerment company, will launch on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) next month. It is led by a cadre of comrades in business including former struggle bookkeeper Mustaq Brey and the founder of South newspaper Rashid Seria, and also by business luminaries from the province like Patricia Gorvalla of the Gorvalla Group and Gaffoor Parker of Al- Amien Foods.
Its impeccable political connections were evident at a meeting last week. At least three national Cabinet ministers made it to the bash despite the World Cup kick-off.
Brimstone shunned the halls of power for its shareholder meeting, where it announced the JSElisting, and opted instead for the down-home feeling of the Good Hope Centre.
Products manufactured by companies in which the three-year-old Brimstone has invested were on display for the shareholders – part of the company’s philosophy to help ordinary shareholders understand exactly what their bucks have bought.
Brimstone is big on such “shareholder democracy”, and sees this as a key part of its empowerment package.
Brey says the Brimstone Foundation will soon be set up to direct its social- responsibility effort.
“We’re still capitalising the foundation and we’re looking for somebody to run it.” The foundation will provide bursaries, and has already helped raise the money to send a Khayelitsha choir to a Welsh festival next month.
Brey, who was behind the creation of the country’s first national black accounting practice – KMMT Brey – left last year to turn his attention to Brimstone full-time. Although that practice won big accounts and was pulling in the bucks, Brey’s move was clever.
In three years, Brimstone’s investment drive has seen it build its portfolio from one which started with a modest R3-million to almost R400-million.
It is a highly acquisitive young company which has chosen an eclectic basket of investments which include everything from Nandos to the high-fashion retail chain LA Clothing and a Bapsfontein farm called Greenworld, whose veggies are so superb that they are imported by Marks & Spencer in London.
The company began when it bought shares from Oceana Fisheries and started a fishing company called African Harvest. For the first time black shareholders were given a slice of the bounty of the seas.
Brimstone now plans to raise R20-million in various share offerings prior to its listing on July 8, and says it wants “to be profitable, empowering and to make a difference”.
Brey says it has already been making a difference by introducing share-incentive schemes in many of the companies it has invested with, and by auditing labour policies to make sure they are in line with the law.
“If a company has a bad track record, we talk to management about improving things before we invest,” Brey says.