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/ 21 December 2006
Four separate developments this year will set the course of corporate social investment in the year to come, if not after. Firstly, the biggest philanthropic event this year was undoubtedly the startling giveaway by the world’s second-richest man of 85% of his fortune.
When the De Beers black economic empowerment deal was announced last year, Cheryl Carolus could be described as not being "one of the usual suspects". Not now. In a short time Carolus, former ambassador to London and darling of those nostalgic for the optimistic non-racialism of the United Democratic Front, has become a firm BEE favourite.
The biggest black economic empowerment deal of the year may not even be a deal. And it may not even be that big in monetary terms. Yet its implications are huge. In February, IBM announced it would add 900 jobs to the 500 it already has at its South African call centre.
The big deal about the fact that a woman officiated at our Islamic wedding ceremony was that virtually no one thought it was a big deal. Apart from an impressed Jewish friend and a concerned Muslim cleric who asked whether there was a precedent for this.
The stark truth is this: even though the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) may rally millions on to the streets, its national strikes no longer stop the economy. And so it was this week. Life went on; most workers went to work; the shops opened, largely staffed by casual workers who generally do not belong to trade unions.
Out in a remote rural area of the Transkei last week an unusual cattle auction, held by a new black economic empowerment auctioneering company, took place. Buyers gathered near a school in the Peddie location, 100km by road from East London. They were bidding for animals that would otherwise end up being sold for ceremonial slaughter or to travelling smouse or speculators.
The importance of black economic empowerment financier Makalani must have whizzed past most newspaper readers when they learned of its imminent launch on the JSE Securities Exchange. The reason is the phrase ”mezzanine financing”, previously a mystery to all but financiers.
Barclays Bank’s potential purchase of a controlling stake in Absa puts into perspective parochial talk of ”big empowerment deals”. The R20-billion bandied about as the price is almost the total spent on black economic empowerment (BEE) deals in 2003. That a foreign bank wants to put such serious money into a South African operation supports the view that BEE does not necessarily deter foreign direct investment.
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/ 27 September 2004
The SABC has more managers and supervisors than staff, which may partly explain why it produced a meagre profit of R3,4-million from turnover of R2,7-billion for the year to end-March. The SABC’s return on total assets for the period was a measly 0,2%. Privatisation of the SABC’s commercial arm would reduce absurdly inflated staff costs and bring other efficiencies, reckons Reg Rumney.
The criticism that one of the biggest Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) deals ever has elicited must have taken its architects by surprise. The Standard Bank BEE deal is worth about R4,1-billion. Yet the spotlight has fallen on the ”enrichment” of the two BEE players who benefit from the remaining 40%, Saki Macozoma’s Safika and Cyril Ramaphosa’s Millennium Consolidated Investments companies.