Ask anybody who has made the most money out of empowerment and they will probably say Tokyo Sexwale, whose shares in Mvelaphanda this week were worth R400-million.
Not far behind is Hosken Consolidated Investments’ (HCI) John Copelyn, whose shareholding until recently was worth R358-million.
Unlike Sexwale, though, Copelyn, a former secretary general of the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union (Sactwu), is white.
Copelyn, together with the Sactwu Education Trust (SET), owns 55% of HCI, which is the largest shareholder in television station e.tv and former media giant Johnnic, and is building a controlling stake in R5-billion gaming chain Tsogo Sun.
A mooted merger with Gold Reef Casinos could lead to the buy-out of SABMiller’s 49% interest in Tsogo Sun and the establishment of a chain of 11 casinos and 80 hotels.
This has the feeling of a Sol Kerzner-type empire, albeit one built on empowerment rather than the homelands policy of former times.
Copelyn rejects suggestions that he is a modern-day Sol Kerzner: “HCI is an investment holding company with about a R2-billion investment in the gaming industry. I don’t believe this makes us kingpins in the industry.
“I am personally not even an execu-tive in any company involved, let alone a kingpin.”
Copelyn has done much better than his union colleagues as the union has become a giant on the South African corporate landscape. The HCI annual report puts Copelyn’s shareholding at 10%, R358-million this week.
The Sactwu website says it has 110 000 members. The SET’s holding in HCI is worth R1,6-billion, an average value of R14 500 per member.
Copelyn’s stake is 25 000 times that of this notional holding, a vast difference given that top salaries for JSE Securities Exchange companies are usually a factor of just a few hundred times those of the lowest-paid worker.
Since his shares are listed shares, he is free to sell at any time he pleases. The average Sactwu member can only benefit through education programmes as the trust is limited to providing educational benefits to its members.
“I believe Sactwu has developed wonderful social programmes that its members are proud of and which greatly enhance the ability of organised workers to care for each other,” says Copelyn.
“The fact that their wealth is collectively owned is consistent with the functioning of trade unions and the solidarity principle that underlies their functioning.”
Andre Kriel, an SET trustee, says: “We have worked with Johnny Copelyn for many years and, while we cannot comment on his personal wealth, we acknowledge that, unlike many other persons who have benefited from investment opportunities, his work has helped to build a significant financial base for the welfare programme for clothing, textile and leather workers.
“If the same level of resources were available to workers in all industries, then [black economic empowerment] would indeed become more broad-based than what it currently is.”
Copelyn says HCI is a public company listed on the stock exchange. “Anyone, black or white, is free to buy its shares if they choose to. I am the CEO of that company and as such have over a lengthy period of time been a buyer of its shares.
“I do not believe this is wrongful or in conflict with the fact that HCI’s main shareholder is a broad-based empowerment shareholder.”
Copelyn and co-founder Marcel Golding have, in recent weeks, donated R79-million and R34-million respectively to the HCI Foundation, a charitable trust.
“I have made an unimagined amount of money as a result of HCI shares catapulting the way they have and as a result decided to make a contribution to a charitable foundation operated by HCI,” says Copelyn.
“I did this in good conscience and because of my personal belief system. It was not an attempt to redress all evils in the world, nor to advantage clothing workers. It is however, a sincere effort to apply a significant part of my wealth to social purposes.”
Kriel says that Sactwu and the independent trusts it has set up have contributed about R70-million to activities that promote the welfare of union members and their communities.
“The union’s activities so financed have ranged from bursaries to students at universities and higher education colleges, to HIV/Aids support programmes for members, tuition for students at high school, child health projects, promotion of literacy and numeracy at primary school level and financing of union activities elsewhere on the African continent.
“Over the past decade, we spent about R36-million on bursaries alone (about R5-million in the past year), and now annually sponsor about 1 500 university and institute of technology students who are dependants of members. We provide bursaries for disabled children of members, who are at special schools.”
Copelyn says that at a point in time (January 2003) HCI appeared to do particularly badly. Television company e.tv was still experiencing much difficulty and HCI had borrowed hundreds of millions of rands to attempt to fund it through its losses.
“At the insistence of its institutional shareholders at the time, HCI sold its interest in Vodacom and used most of the proceeds to pay off this debt.
“HCI also made a voluntary offer to its shareholders to buy back HCI shares at R2,37 per share. HCI management advised they believed e.tv would turn and the share be more valuable than this. We stated we would not be selling HCI shares ourselves.
“Nevertheless some 271-million to 381-million shares were thrown back to the company in this voluntary buyback,” says Copelyn.
“Those who did not sell shares had their percentage shareholding concentrated very significantly. This applied to management and, in part, to Sactwu which paid off some debt at the time.”
Copelyn’s role in Sactwu extends to running its investment arm, Sacwtu Investment Group, which has other interests besides those held in HCI. These include interests in three clothing companies: Seardel, Beier Wool and Zenzeleni.
Copelyn says he is not “a trustee of Sactwu’s trusts, nor am I a director of its holding company, nor am I an officer of the union. The elected leadership of the union fill these roles.
“I played a key role in getting the union to establish its investment company and in seeking out business opportunities which would assist it in building up a capital base, which would allow it to provide a great many significant benefits to its members and their families.”
Kriel says no Sactwu official has any shares in HCI, nor does any receive payment for work related to the investment and welfare programme. “We do not use investment income to finance union salaries or core operational work of the union because we believe the union should be dependent on member subscriptions in order to enhance accountability.
“We gave a report on the union investments at our national congress in September last year, attended by about 700 Sactwu worker delegates representing over 100 000 members from across the country. Our national executive committee receives regular reports on the performance of the investment company,” says Kriel.
“We have been the beneficiaries of significant growth in the value of HCI in the past three years, with the share price having increased by some 1 700%.
“The union granted a modest start-up loan of R2-million that was repaid about two years later. Since then, we have not used a cent of member subscriptions for investments nor have we invested any member provident fund moneys in the investment company.”