If you judged the world by newspaper headlines, black economic empowerment (BEE) is all about gargantuan deals with complex financing and titanic battles between white and black groups in charter negotiations over equity targets. Unfortunately, this fixation on the ”Art of the Deal” neglects the many small shifts at every level that are gradually changing the colour of South African business.
The challenge to the government for the next 10 years will be to manage expectations of the new, sometimes already empowered, black middle class for radical redistribution of ownership. Yet it must at the same time ensure that its BEE strategy does indeed change the colour of a growing economy rather than sprinkling a few black millionaires on top of a white business sector.
Judging by the publicity of Telkom’s sale of shares to the general public, its ”retail offering” was a tremendous black empowerment success. If you were looking at the continuing privatisation of Telkom from the point of view of ”broad-based” black economic empowerment, however, you would be justified in asking, ”What is the big deal?” writes Reg Rumney.
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/ 16 December 2003
President Thabo Mbeki’s stinging attack on South African domestic chemical and synthetic-fuel company Sasol suggests the long-standing gulf of misunderstanding persists between established, white business and the government.
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/ 21 October 2003
Who speaks for business? The creation recently of the overarching business body that enables, so it is thought, black and white business to speak with one voice means this question begs to be asked. Executive director of Businessmap Foundation Reg Rumney puts his ear to the floor.
South African motorists — and would-be motorists — are aggrieved. Car prices continue to outpace inflation, despite the international purchasing power of the rand improving last year.
It may seem heavy-handed that SABMiller and Coca-Cola sued the makers of T-shirts that mocked one of their brands. But it is the logical step for companies that believe passionately that the brand is the business.
The role of incentives in attracting foreign direct investment — long-term committed capital as opposed to volatile investments in bonds and equities — to Southern Africa is negligible. The size of the market is more important, and strong domestic economic growth may be a precursor to higher levels of such investment.
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/ 27 December 2002
The highlight of the past year for those involved in corporate social investment must have been a business-sponsored project making it on to the front page of a major financial magazine.
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/ 21 October 2002
David McDonald’s article last week supposedly backing the Cosatu anti-privatisation strike is typical of the obfuscation around this issue, not helped by the government’s inability to sell its own programme. He rounds up the usual suspects: the World Bank, the WTO, big business, and multinationals.