Seventeen years in the ASI Group offers solutions in financial services, property management and connectivity. Their offering is multifaceted, but their mission is solidly clear – to find answers that will make businesses thrive, not just for today but for generations to come..
Anthony Govender, the founder and CEO of ASI Financial Services, proudly points to a compilation of photos in his office. The son of a truck driver and a domestic worker is pictured as a small child on the arms of his grandmother, in front of the shack he grew up in.
“I feel incredibly privileged, humbled and grateful that I’m in a position to serve other people,” he says. “I’ve gotten into rooms, I’ve met presidents of countries, and here’s a kid who was raised in a zinc shack, who went to public school, who is nobody important.”
Govender began his career as a call centre agent and rose through the ranks of financial service companies like Discovery and Liberty. In 2008, he made a bold decision to start his own company, inspired in part by the late MEC of education Ignatius Jacobs, who told him that young up-and-comers often focus on bringing international companies into the country, when there is so much potential to do something local. “That sort of triggered the thoughts and feelings that perhaps we can create something for South Africa,” Govender says.
Nonetheless, building a brand in financial services was not easy. “The first three years were incredibly difficult. It took us nearly 31 months to break even. The team made it through threats of the business failing and Govender having to put almost all his personal savings into the company. He jokingly talks about putting in a lot of “sweat capital” into the business.
The hard work paid off, and ASI is now a corporation that employs a few hundred people and serves around 2,4 million beneficiaries in the financial services market. What is particularly impressive is that the company has done so with a debt-free balance sheet and a risk-averse attitude. “I think I learned from the early days of trading in the business that cash is king,“ Govender explains.
It came with great personal cost to move the company in that direction, but, for the ASI team, the calculated risk paid off. “We became very guarded in the management of our cash flows, and it’s one of the primary reasons why we’ve kept all of the money that we’ve made in the company, rather than declaring it as a dividend,” he says.
Govender explains that he follows a guiding principle of frugally innovating. The big black and brown boardroom table is a great example of this. When the company needed a new one, they were quoted R135 000. Instead, he stopped the process, called a second-hand furniture place and bought two tables for R8000.
This careful thinking has led him to bring toothpaste into the boardroom with his executive team and make an example of how much is left in the tube when it appears empty. “You could squeeze a lot more value out of every brand, and we could get more value out of this company, if we manage the resources right,” he says.
At the heart of this is a desire to make the business last well beyond his tenure. “Nothing that you buy in this life belongs to you,” Govender says. “You build the business, but it’s not yours. It’s yours to hand over. “
ASI’s most recent endeavor reflects this desire for building and protecting business legacies. The company launched its Entrepreneurship-Through-Acquisition (ETA) Search Fund, which puts R300 million towards connecting businesses that have retiring owners with a new generation of entrepreneurs.
Govender says that it started with him convincing two older businessmen in East London to trust him with their businesses. “The epiphany that we got from that was that there are a number of long-standing businesses that have been around for the last 25 or 30 years, and these businesses typically disappear into the ether without any succession plan. We wanted to solve that. “
Two months into the process, the ETA fund is going strong. ASI is helping a lot of family-owned businesses, some of which are in their second generation, find a suitable future. For instance, Govender mentions a short-term brokerage firm in Pretoria whose owner had to face health issues and has been able to successfully partner with ASI to plan her succession.
“I anticipate that the 300 million fund will simply be wiped out,” Govender says, without a hint of sadness. The fact that the market is responding so well to the opportunity excites him. “The fact that we’re solving a problem amongst the business community, and people feel psychologically safe to trust our brand, has taken 17 years to build that, and it’s a massive pat on the back for us.”
“The thinking has always been, how do I create something that may not be as big [as other companies], but is something significant that can really impact people long after I’ve gone, and one of the things that I’ve been looking at is creating a legacy succession in our leadership structure.” Instead of building too big too fast, Govender and ASI are a testament to what happens when businesses are built to last.
ASI business principles
- Humanity: We cannot exist without our clients, their employees and our own people – relationships are at the core of everything we do to improve the lives of all who live in South Africa.
- Transparency: Our independent advisory services are transparent, with our consultants and service providers openly accountable for every part of all relationships.
- Innovation: Our actuarial tools, passion for fintech, and understanding of South Africa’s complexities allow us to provide innovative analysis and strategic advice for diverse organisations.
- Excellence: The only way we can achieve our vision of Building Wealth and Changing Lives in South Africa is by setting excellence as our standard in every client and partner relationship.
- Integrity: We operate honestly and within all the legislation that guides the financial services sector, firm in our resolve to do business ethically and fairly, always.
- Simplicity: Financial advisory services that achieve the best results are simple, accessible, and easy to understand, much like our bespoke services and our processes.
Stats:
- 17 years in business
- Work with 70 Brokers
- Have 7300 Business clients
- Over 2.4 million lives touched