Stephen Saad — MD of South African pharmaceutical company Aspen Pharmacare Holdings — has been named as the South African winner of the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year Awards for 2004/05, Ernst & Young announced on Friday.
Saad will represent South Africa at the global awards ceremony, to be held in Monte Carlo in May next year, vying with 35 other country finalists for the title of World Entrepreneur of the Year.
Past winners of this competition — termed “Business Oscars” — in other states include Michael Dell of Dell Computers and Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com.
Saad received his award in Johannesburg on Thursday night from the CEOs of Ernst & Young and Rand Merchant Bank, who are the sponsors and organisers of the local chapter of this global competition.
He was credited with growing Aspen from humble beginnings as a small wholesale medical company with operations in Gauteng and Durban to being the principal manufacturer and supplier of anti-retroviral drugs to the South African government.
Today, Aspen supplies one out of every four tablets or capsules consumed by the public health-care system in the country. Aspen is one of the top 20 generic pharmaceutical companies in the world and is also one of only
three approved United States Food and Drug Administration suppliers of generic anti-retrovirals.
Saad led Aspen’s acquisition of South African Druggists for R2,4-billion. Shrugging off advice that he discount the shares, Saad refused to relent and was saddled with a R1-billion debt that he repaid in full within five years of the deal.
Saad bested five other short-listed candidates whose business achievements have become legendary. They were Pick ‘n Pay group chairperson Raymond Ackerman; founder of M-Net and Naspers CEO Koos Bekker; Pam Golding Property Group chairperson Pam Golding; founder and executive chairperson of PD Naidoo & Associates Dempsey Naidoo; and Avis Southern Africa chairperson Glenn van Heerden.
Saad was selected by a high-level panel of judges representing some of South Africa’s best business and academic talent, including Bidvest’s Brian Joffe and the empowerment council’s Danisa Baloyi.
The previous winners of the South African edition of the awards are Joffe, mining magnate Patrice Motsepe, Massmart’s Mark Lamberti, Master Currency’s Zitulele KK Combi, Softline’s Ivan Epstein and Discovery Holdings’ Adrian Gore.
Ernst & Young CEO Phillip Hourquebie said: “We believe this World Entrepreneur of the Year Award serves as encouragement to other entrepreneurs to carve a sustainable imprint on the local and international socio-economic landscape.”
Rand Merchant Bank CEO Michael Pfaff said the finalists epitomise all that is great about South Africa’s entrepreneurial spirit and their vision and dynamism lay the foundations for the country’s future prosperity. — I-Net Bridge