Michelle Krastanov, head of the sponsor team at Arbor Capital headquartered in Sunninghill, Johannesburg, greets us with a firm handshake and a warm smile, and we soon get talking about how she got to lead the business responsible for 60% of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s (JSE) AltX listings last year.
Krastanov started her career in 1987 at a time the word ‘businesswoman’ was still gaining currency, as just one of three female article clerks of more than 30 at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
“I was told by a female manager I was lucky to have been employed because I am female. When I went out to meetings, I was often asked by men, ‘what’s a pretty little thing like you doing here?’, so as soon as I said anything intelligent they would be mightily impressed,” says Krastanov.
The firm’s auditing contract with one of its clients was coming to a close. That year, Krastanov’s manager made her assistant manager, leading the client’s audit. She worked hard. PwC eventually tendered for the audit again because the whole dynamic had changed with Krastanov at the helm.
“Over the years, they have changed their hiring to over 50% women, and it’s a job very well-suited to a woman – there’s a lot of attention to detail.”
In 1994, after seven years at PwC, Krastanov became part of a joint venture and following a restructuring, she and another partner decided to take over the business where she acted as a corporate advisor. In 2001, the JSE changed its listing requirements, which the business was not able to meet, and being pregnant with her eldest son at the time, Krastanov chose to hand over her clients.
“I decided to be responsible and get a job. Arcay gave me a call because they were wanting to become sponsors and they needed a documentation specialist. Within three weeks we had our JSE sponsor license… And most of the clients I handed over found me,” she says.
Krastanov’s greatest challenge, like many women, has been finding a balance between her personal and work life. Most difficult for her was when in 2013, shortly after Arcay Capital, now Arbor, was bought out by Krastanov and her partners, her youngest son, Matthew, had a brain haemorrhage – the result of a condition called arteriovenous malformation (AVM). After hours researching AVM, Krastanov found local treatment and an MRI earlier this year revealed Matthew’s condition is improving.
Krastanov is dedicated to her roles, both as a mother and manager, however, she suffered a major setback to her health when she was diagnosed with breast cancer after an abnormal cyst became inflamed.
Earlier this year, she underwent a double mastectomy and reconstruction. The operation was a success.
On her cancer experience, she says: “I didn’t get angry and I didn’t get upset… my interest was in surviving for my kids. When you’ve got kids, you take different decisions and if I compare it to what happened with Matthew, this was easy – this was controllable because it was my decision.”
Krastanov concludes that if being a woman in business has taught her anything, it is that you have to consistently work hard and prove yourself.

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‘I Didn’t Get Angry At Cancer’

Vusi Thembekwayo loves to talk. He says he will do for talking what Muhammad Ali did for boxing. Ali told the world he was “The greatest”. So does Thembekwayo.
To him, great public speakers, like boxers, are not trained, they are born. His wit is the glue that binds his diverse audiences. John Howard, former Prime Minister of Australia called him the “rock star of public speaking”; global strategist and scenario-planning guru Clem Sunter said he was “simply riveting”; Sir Bob Geldof said “Vusi is a f*cken great speaker,” according to Thembekwayo.
Thembekwayo has always been an overachiever. At 21, he ran a successful consulting firm, then South Africa’s only black-owned Forensic Marketing agency. At 25, he was the youngest director of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, a bourse turning over $1.3 billion a year. At 29, he delivered 214 presentations, in 21 countries charging up to $8,000 a time. At 30, he influences over $300 million in seven companies he holds shares in. His companies operate in Kenya, Uganda, South Africa and Nigeria.
As a child, Thembekwayo studied by candlelight and used to wake up before dawn to prepare for school. His father had started a business with their house as collateral.
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“The bank was about to repossess our house so my mother and my siblings had to move in with relatives. We stayed in a small backroom and had to wake up very early, make fire and make porridge to eat,” he says.
“One minute we had a home and were being dropped off at school in our father’s car and the next we were suffering commuting kilometers in taxis to school. That experience shapes how I look at the world and my understanding of risk. I understand that whatever it is you have, tomorrow it could be all gone.”
His father resolved the debt situation but couldn’t escape tragedy. Thieves shot him nine times leaving him to bleed to death at the side.
“This was a very difficult time in my life. My dad and I were best friends. We did everything together and went everywhere together. The only reason I wasn’t with him that day is because my mum was ill and I stayed with her at home when my dad was shot for his cell phone.”
At this moment, a tear forms in Thembekwayo’s eye. “South Africa has a violent past and that narrative continues to find expression in modern South Africa, we condone violence because we find reason to defend why it’s ok to do it and we have a justice system that isn’t sufficiently punitive for people who perpetrate the act. We need to come together as a society to say no matter the reason it is not ok to take a life.”
Left with a single mother, at the age of 15, his big mouth got him into trouble long before it became his fortune. He was forced to take up public speaking as punishment for misbehavior in high school. He was booed off the stage for what everyone thought was a male chauvinistic speech titled: What Women Want.
“The best way to get me to do something is telling me I can’t do it. When they booed me off stage I started working harder to get to where I am,” he says.
Thembekwayo studied for a BCom degree at the University of the Witwatersrand but dropped out because of money. He believes entrepreneurship is practice more than theory.
“Some of the people who get the education are the people who will not move the dial in any meaningful way. The education system in South Africa is and continues to be archaic. I also did a course at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) which was supposed to be a year but took me three years because they didn’t understand how I think. South African business schools are behind on how you educate a Vusi.”
“You don’t need too many things to start a business. Start where you are. South African young people are really challenged. They have access to DSTV and they see the world in a particular way but the reality doesn’t reflect the world they see. You must recognize what’s around you and build with what you have. If you have a vision for the future, it is important to know nobody starts where they end up.”
This is not just advice for him. It is exactly how he started building his fortune after receiving a standing ovation for a speech for which he was paid a mere R35 (less than $3).
“Former president Thabo Mbeki was the keynote speaker at the event and he gave me a hug and endorsed me at that event telling people to give me more work,” he says.
He used the R35 to make phone calls to all the people he met at that event. He says entrepreneurship is starting something that other people don’t see and getting them to see it, believe in it, buy in it and help you build it.
Even when he became a well-known figure, life has not always been milk and honey. When he decided to start his company, My Growth Fund (MGF), it ushered in six of his worst months as an entrepreneur.
Thembekwayo failed to acquire funding for the company. When he had money, in the 2011-2012 financial year, he invested $274,000 in a steel company. Excited, he neglected to do proper due diligence. The investment went into a black hole. There were neither contracts nor legal documents to save him.
“I wasn’t thorough. I didn’t check if the company I was buying into had legacy liability or legacy issues. I was over eager. The entrepreneur convinced me that everything was going to go well, only to find out my money was used to pay off her debts. She had creditors and suppliers who she owed and she did not disclose this to me. She also had the South African Revenue Services coming after her.”
Part of this $274,000 was supposed to pay his own staff.
“I didn’t know what to do. All that I had was gone. What was I going to tell my staff? They also had their own lives and bills. But this situation taught me that if you are honest with people they understand. I told my staff the truth about what had happened and they worked hard, booked me for more speaking jobs and I was able to pay them,” he says.
“I learned an important lesson to take my time. Where you are going is guaranteed. There is no doubt, so don’t rush, follow the process.”
Thembekwayo started over.
“No matter how much you trust the other person when doing an investment, make sure the numbers support it, make sure you cover your basics, and the legal side holds water,” he says.
Today if he buys into a business he moves all the capital and operating capital into a separate business to make sure there is no history to infect the investment.  Public speaking is one of the ways he makes money as an entrepreneur.
“Vusi is a very funny guy when he gives his talks. He is always well informed on the subjects he talks about such as business and investment opportunities. I always watch his YouTube videos and follow his advice,” says Thato Mokoena, a South African small business entrepreneur.
Thembekwayo studied by candlelight, his father was brutally killed, business schools didn’t understand him, he was booed off stage, he lost millions, but survived to tell the tale from the stage where he was once scorned.

He survived failure, tragedy and lost millions

Arriving at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on his first visit to South Africa, Azim Premji, the silver-haired Indian tech tycoon, steps out of a white Mercedes-Benz and greets us warmly. For a billionaire, he’s dressed in an understated black suit, white shirt, and black and white tie. It only takes a few minutes to realize this is a man of few words, and many values. His currency: integrity.
“What is unique about Premji is that there is only black and white, and nothing grey, when it comes to his focus on integrity. And he will pay any price for it,” says Shailendra Singh, the Johannesburg-based general manager and head of Wipro’s Africa business.
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Integrity has been at the heart of the New York-listed Wipro empire the 69-year-old Premji has set up and built in India since 1966. His philosophy: if you have values, success in business will follow.
“His unflinching commitment to values, unflagging philanthropic spirit, deep social conscience and proven success make him one of the tallest business leaders India has produced. Working with him is in many ways a lesson in living one’s life,” says TK Kurien, CEO and Member of the Board at Wipro.
Famous for taking India’s information technology services to the world post the country’s liberalization in the 1990s, the Wipro chairman has consistently been on global wealth lists. According to FORBES’ 2014 rich list released in October, Premji is the 45th wealthiest person on the planet with an estimated fortune of $16.5 billion. He is India’s third richest.
Often hailed by Indian media as ‘India’s Bill Gates’, not only for his software riches, but also his headline-grabbing charity donations, Premji has contributed a large chunk of his wealth to social causes, notably education, and is now also ranked as one of the world’s biggest donors.
Premji has donated 21% of his shareholding of Wipro, about $5.5 billion, to the Azim Premji Foundation, set up in 2001 to remedy India’s public education system. Last year, he became the first Indian to sign The Giving Pledge (a commitment by the world’s wealthiest individuals and families to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy), with the likes of Warren Buffett and Elon Musk.
Premji has also influenced other business leaders in India. His close friend and India’s biotech queen Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, the CMD of Biocon, calls him a torchbearer for philanthropy.
“I have known Azim for several decades and have tremendous respect for his entrepreneurial acumen which is driven by a strong set of ethical values and a quest for global leadership&#8230; I have been deeply influenced by him and see him as a mentor in my own philanthropic endeavors. I think he is one of the most inspirational business leaders of our times.”
In 2013, Premji had surprised India’s business world when he said he supported a government proposal to tax the super-rich. Premji has often been written about in the Indian press as a man with a modest lifestyle despite his billions, very much like India’s other tech billionaire, Infosys’ NR Narayana Murthy.
On The Giving Pledge website, Premji quotes his mother, a medical doctor and philanthropist, as the most significant influence in his life. He says he was also influenced by Gandhi’s notion of holding one’s wealth in trusteeship, to be used for the betterment of society and not as if one owned it.
Premji was only 21 when he had to return from the United States (US) to his hometown Bangalore in South India following his father’s untimely death. This was a year before graduating from Stanford, where he was studying engineering. He had to take over the family’s $2-million cooking oil business, Western India Vegetable Products Limited (later renamed Wipro).
Premji focused on building Wipro into a successful and professionally-run organization. He leveraged India’s engineering talent to manufacture computers, turning his family’s hydrogenated vegetable fat business into a leading software services company and outsourcing giant.
Today, the Bangalore-based company is India’s third-largest software exporter and a $7-billion revenue IT, BPO and R&amp;D services conglomerate with a presence in 60 countries. Wipro has been in South Africa for the last three years. The company is currently in the process of identifying universities and colleges it wants to engage with for internship programs across South Africa. Wipro’s 1,600-strong Africa workforce is 40% localized.
Premji’s September visit to South Africa was to explore those opportunities in skills development, using South Africa as a springboard for the rest of Africa. And there will be significant investments in the country.
“South Africa is a high-growth market for us,” says the soft-spoken Premji.
“We will continue to expand and localize here. We have trained about 400 interns here, out of which we have employed 70 percent. We are now planning to engage with the universities in South Africa, upgrade their curriculum, and re-train their teachers. Once trained, we find our interns [in South Africa] to be first-rate… We then give them a three-month rotation on the job and many of them perform as well as people [in India] in terms of output, productivity and commitment to the job.”
Education is top priority for this philanthropist. In India, the Azim Premji University established in 2011 is focused on teaching and research programs.
“I do what I think is the right thing to do vis-a-vis philanthropy. I consider my wealth a fiduciary responsibility and my family supports me on that, importantly,” says Premji, who has been very vocal about the issue of the wealthy giving back.
He has hosted philanthropy meets with Bill Gates in India.
“I have been chairing a movement in India for the last two years, similar to what Bill Gates is doing in the US, trying to encourage people to be more philanthropic. It’s a slow process, but there is a lot of generosity among the new rich professionals who have made it big in terms of start-ups. There is probably more generosity there than amongst the very wealthy.”
Premji believes there is a distinction between the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) of a company and personal philanthropy.
“People often get the two [mixed] up. I think there is a trend towards companies trying to build an image with society that they care, trying to be sensitive to the environment in terms of the resources they use to increase their CSR as a percentage of their revenue and as a percentage of their profit. This is a good trend. Some people confuse the company’s CSR with individual philanthropy and say we are doing a lot in the company, we don’t need to do anything ourselves, which is unfortunate.”
In October 2005, Financial Times included Premji in a global list of 25 people dramatically reshaping the way people live, work or think. TIME listed him among the world’s 100 most influential people in April 2004 and again in April 2011, for improving India’s public education. In 2011, he was conferred the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second highest civilian award.
Premji’s two sons are also taking his legacy forward. His eldest, Rishad, has been with Wipro for the last eight years; his youngest, Tariq, is with the Azim Premji Foundation.
Premji has great faith in India’s new Narendra Modi government, and is equally optimistic about Africa.
“India is a key market for us. Indian customers are very demanding in terms of technology, quality and price; you cannot take them for granted. We are [also] very serious about Africa. We [Wipro] are in a very niche area – IT services and solutions. Without question, the Narendra Modi government will forge better ties with Africa.”
Premji promises to be back in South Africa next year. Hopefully, by then, he would have won over the rest of Africa as well.

The Tech Czar Who Gave  $5.5 Billion Away

It was déjà vu for South Africa’s African Bank Limited (ABIL) when it was put under curatorship on August 10. It was for the very same reason too, liquidity. The Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, Leon Kirkinis, resigned with immediate effect in August. This marks the third time the bank finds itself in trouble.
ABIL was founded by the National African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NAFCOC) as a black-owned bank that could fund black-owned businesses during apartheid. The first branch opened in 1965 in Ga-Rankuwa, a small township outside of Pretoria.
A man that knows ABIL better than most is Gaby Magomola, currently the Executive Chairman of Thamaga Investment Holdings. A veteran of the ruling party, the ANC, and former Robben Island prisoner, Magomola was recruited in 1979 by Citibank, in New York, where he was trained to become an international banker and eventually grew to become its second black manager.
When he returned to South Africa, Magomola was driven by the desire to promote commerce as a career for people of color, as well as create a platform to assist small businesses and entrepreneurs.
From 1986 to 1989, ABIL was placed in curatorship for the first time. In 1987, Magomola joined ABIL after three offers from the bank. He says the bank had a relatively good business model at the time.
The reserve bank persuaded the four big banks, at the time, to purchase preference shares to rescue ABIL.
After proving its worth and getting out of curatorship, Magomola was thrown out of the African Bank by the board because of a business model he’d been working on for the bank. This model is now commonly used nearly 30 years later.
The downfall of ABIL played itself out in public when the bank announced an $800-million financial gap. Trading on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was suspended after investors began dumping shares and its credit rating was downgraded.
The troubles at ABIL have affected South Africa’s banking industry. Soon after the news broke on ABIL, Capitec Bank was downgraded two levels and placed on review. The top four banks, Standard Bank, Absa, First National Bank and Nedbank, were prematurely later downgraded a level. The downgrading of these top lenders could very well lead to the downgrading of the country’s sovereign rating.
“Effective policy includes the resolution of financial firms in trouble in a way that imposes losses on those investors who profited from that firm’s activities and who were in a position to exercise influence over that firm’s management,” said South Africa’s Minister of Finance, Nhlanhla Nene, at the Southern African Internal Audit Conference.
The Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, Gill Marcus, said that a substantial portion of the non- and under-performing assets and high-risk loans will be bought from ABIL, separating them from the good book, which has a book value of $2.4 billion after impairments.
A $938-million recapitalization is also on the cards.
ABIL’s curatorship does not interfere with the bank’s day-to-day running. Customers’ deposits are guaranteed and loans remain legally binding.
The bank says its vision is to improve its customers’ quality of life through affordable, convenient and responsible credit. It also says customers will always receive the necessary information to understand what they are committing to.
“The unfortunate thing [about ABIL] is that it threw people into a perpetual debt trap… it was an accident waiting to happen,” says Magomola.
In 2013, branches in KwaZulu-Natal were fined $1.8 million for breaching the National Credit Act. ABIL wrote-off loans, removed blacklistings and rescinded court judgements against borrowers.
Although insecure lending leads to an increase in retail sales, it also leads to an increase in household debt. It’s a bad way to finance the economy. Increased limitations on lending will result in a decline in retail sales and manufacturing. South Africa’s inflation was sitting at 6.3% in August.
Magomola believes the bank needs to revert to being a deposit-taking institution that encourages saving and use those savings to make loans where they are merited.
One long standing and loyal customer is Malesela Maraba, a resident of Seshego, a town in the province of Limpopo. Maraba was a member of the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo), one of the radical political parties during apartheid. He and his wife were asleep in their four-bedroom house when it was petrol bombed by the police in the early hours of 27 March, 1986.
“It was around 4AM and I was with my wife. When we came out, the police wanted to throw me into the burning house. The idea was to get me killed,” says Maraba.
It is a heavy price to pay for protesting for freedom. However, he survived to see another day.
The fire gutted the house. Maraba took the case to court but without success. He was never paid a cent for the damages. A few years later, he decided to rebuild the house at the very same location.
Maraba says he approached other banks which wouldn’t give him a
good deal.
“Then I heard about African Bank. A friend of mine told me about his friend, Jack Monyepao, who worked there. He told me I must discuss with Jack and he won’t give me a problem,” says Maraba.
At African Bank, Maraba delivered the building plans. The bank also requested that he get quotes for all the materials needed for the house. Everything added up to about $4,200 and the loan was approved in just three weeks. The house got rebuilt with 11 rooms. Much bigger than the home that was petrol bombed.
Maraba says the bank gave customers cash in the past and people paid back their loans. He says he took seven years to pay back the loan and he took other loans after that.
“That’s the African Bank I knew. We paid back the money on a monthly basis. Now I don’t know how this problem came about,” says the 58-year-old Maraba.
“Banking is about assessing risks and managing those risks,” says Magomola.
Some of the outcry from the public comes from customers becoming over-indebted, with multiple loans in play at ABIL. Greater limitations should have been placed on the level of debt these clients were allowed, but one has to question the reasoning behind racking up numerous loans before paying any off. Are South Africans living beyond their means?
Magomola calls for an investigation into why the regulators allowed the bank to provide unsecured loans.
But what should happen to ABIL? Does it deserve to be saved yet again?
“There is a need in South Africa today for a banking institution held predominantly, and owned predominantly, by black South Africans. I’m not saying that African Bank is necessarily that entity, but there is a huge gap and you cannot have a free nation that governs an economy as sophisticated and as large as South Africa that does not have a bank owned by its own people, the indigenous people,” says Magomola.
It remains to be seen if the people will continue to rally behind this bank.

‘An Accident  Waiting To Happen’

A deep horn blast was used in a slice of history at Africa’s biggest stock exchange. It was from the lungs of Rakesh Wahi, Founder and Vice Chairman of Africa Business News (ABN), signaling the opening of the bourse, as CNBC Africa crossed a new frontier in business broadcasting on the continent.
CNBC Africa – the sister of FORBES AFRICA in the ABN stable – became the first African broadcaster to beam shows from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE). It came on the eve of the company’s seventh anniversary.
“It’s an exciting time; I haven’t stopped smiling since yesterday. It is to the credit of the people around you who have all done a fantastic job,” says Wahi.
CNBC Africa is emulating the example of CNBC in the United States (US), which has broadcast from the New York Stock Exchange since 1995. This move is all part of a bigger plan.
“Our vision is to be in all 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. We have to be in all the major exchanges and report from the smaller ones. We need to be able to integrate all these exchanges through information flows. We need to be able to go out and educate people about what markets are,” says Wahi.
The new studio is state of the art. It includes an eight cube video wall, six interview positions and robotic cameras – which will be fully controlled out of the gallery and will minimize additional camera crew. The main anchor desk, resembling a star, is a copy of the one used both in Europe and the US.
It will host Open Exchange, Power Lunch and Closing Bell, with regular crossings to Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Mauritius, Uganda, Zambia, Namibia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Botswana, Gabon and Ghana.
Jean Landsberg, the head of technical and operations for the ABN Group, traveled to New York and Singapore to check out the latest technology.
“When I traveled to the SGX in Singapore and New York, I got an idea how they put their infrastructure in place… whereas Singapore still link in to their [stock exchange], from the main studio, we will be actually running everything and all the operations from the JSE studios. So it’s a little more advanced than what Singapore is doing,” says Landsberg.
LED technology will be used to reduce the power consumption by the studio lights and the video wall. Landsberg says, as time goes by, small technological frills will be added.
The new technology is in the interest of keeping business people better informed about what’s happening inside Africa’s biggest bourse.

The First Lady of the road

On The Pulse Of The Markets

The Royal Bafokeng Nation in north west South Africa has an estimated worth of more than R40 billion ($3.76 billion), with stakes in platinum mining, telecommunications and shares in the Rand Merchant Bank Holdings. It listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 2011.
But, many on the ground claim this vast wealth is not trickling down to the people; that millions have been wasted on white elephant projects. At the sharp end of this discontent is Luka in Action, a group representing youth in Bafokeng.
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The group is based in Luka, a village lying 10 kilometers north of Rustenburg in the North West province. The youth say the Bafokeng administration has failed to deliver on promises of employment, despite its vast wealth. These days, Luka, once a fertile farmland with livestock, resembles a township dotted with shebeens and youth hanging around on street corners.
Luka in Action claims it has companies; Sediba Sa Kwena, involved in renewable energy and Refetogile Moral Regeneration, which seeks to train ex-offenders, which are yet to get off the ground because there is no money.
The youth claim the money was wasted on sports development programs involving a team of Brazilian football coaches. They say, without their knowledge, the Brazilian team called Samba was brought in to train coaches and young players. After a five year contract, little has happened.
“Those Brazilians have come and gone with millions of rands but there’s nothing to show why they were here except t-shirts and soccer balls they handed out. If they can pay the Brazilians for doing nothing, surely they have funds to sponsor our projects,” says youth representative Otlile Thlapane.
In Luka village there is a state-of-the-art youth center, equipped with computers and games, as well as a radio station paid for by the Royal Bafokeng, but it is not working amid claims of mismanagement.
The youth further complain that the nearby mines, where the money comes from, are damaging their village. Blasting creates cracks in houses and underground vibrations, pollution and water shortages are the order of the day.
“The influx of migrant workers with their families had turned Luka to a slum township. Each year, locals erect dwellings to rent out. Our water supply is overused and the municipal refuse truck cannot manage. These people are causing stress to the limited resources, even clinics are not managing well because the mines are not providing adequate resources to their employees,” claims Thlapane.
“Royal Bafokeng Administration people have their individual agendas, they do not represent us, and worse, they don’t know their jobs.”
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“Kgosi Lerou Tshekedi Molotlegi [the king of Bafokeng] desires the best for the Bafokeng community, making sure that we are getting the right education and we become employable, but the administration entrusted with implementing that is failing him,” says Thlapane.
He says the surrounding mines have encouraged many youth to drop out of school and go underground for low wages.
“We are the richest nation with seventeen mining shafts but we have nothing to show for that,” says Thlapane.
The youth in the 29 villages around Luka say their frustrations with the Royal Bafokeng Administration and mining company Impala Platinum, which have shafts nearby, have led to people taking the law into their own hands.
Twenty-six-year-old Kelebogile Diale, who is a partner with Thlapane in Sediba Sa Kwena, says there are three pending court cases implicating the community in arson and malicious damage to property, public violence and intimidation.
On an overcast summer’s day, FORBES AFRICA went in search of answers at the Royal Marang Hotel, in Rustenburg, a four-star hotel owned by the Royal Bafokeng. Here we met Kgosana Mojalefa Mogono, a headman in Mogono village and businessman, dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt. The 36-year-old speaks for the older generation on behalf of the Royal Bafokeng.
“The youth’s claim about unemployment is valid but we are doing our best to have more youth trained and skilled so that they could be employable in the future,” says Mogono.
“The sense of entitlement is really killing our youth. Lack of communication has led to wrong perceptions that there’s nothing happening.”
“Bafokeng youth know where to get information but they choose to be ignorant and go around spreading lies. There are more non-Bafokeng people who have come to pursue jobs in the mines and they are the ones making the noise,” says Mogono.
“In our programs we align ourselves with youth because we have aging community leaders and in the next 10 years the Royal Bafokeng will be run by them. The nation will be shooting itself in the foot if they ignore youth.”
Mogono and Ditebogo Diale, a Luka resident and Mogono’s cousin, say Luka in Action’s claims that the nation spent R400 million ($37.6 million) on the soccer development project are ridiculous. They say the project budget could not have been far from the similar National Basketball Association project that cost the nation R10 million ($940,000).
Mogono says renting out houses to mine workers had been discouraged by Molotlegi. He says it is draining resources allocated to Bafokeng subjects.
Mogono says the Bafokeng Administration, which is independent from Rustenburg Municipality, conducts its own census and all the Bafokeng have proof of residences so they could get employment priority. But, outsiders manipulate the system.
“Unfortunately Kgosi cannot willy-nilly chase people off the Bafokeng land. It’s unconstitutional, but the government needs to create employment where these people come from,” Diale says.
Mogona says the Bafokeng Education Institute, which oversees a nursing college, a management school, as well as hospitality and artisanship colleges, promotes skills development. In 2009, King Molotlegi launched Lebone II College, a private school that sponsors tuition fees for Bafokeng learners.
“Lebone II College is a world-class school, whose main purpose is to afford talented Bafokeng children an educational opportunity that will hopefully assist them to transcend their circumstances and achieve their true potential. As such, it is equipped with the best infrastructure and educators in South Africa,” says Mogono.
Mogono dismisses Luka in Action’s claims that the Royal Bafokeng Administration is autocratic.
“If people were following the right channels of the Royal Bafokeng Administration they would not be making such noises. These are people who don’t attend makgotla (meetings). Many of them stay in Johannesburg for a long time and they come back demanding. This is not how we do things.”
Mogono also denies claims that the local youth are not given equal opportunities of employment in the nearby Impala Platinum mines.
He says the youth don’t seem interested in the youth center facility. The center is endorsed by the Love Life youth program.
The Impala Platinum management has acknowledged they have not done much to develop the community in the past, hence they have a social labor plan that involves the building of a technical school in the Luka village this year, says Mogono.
The future for the Royal Bafokeng, the wealthiest tribe in Africa, threatens to be as complicated as it is rich.

The Sense Of Entitlement  Is Killing Our Youth

Tryphosa Ramano has always had a passion for infrastructure and money. So when she got the opportunity to become the chief financial officer (CFO) of South Africa’s Pretoria Portland Cement Company (PPC), it was a no-brainer.
“Money and figures turn me on. But I always say: to what extent can you put money into perspective?”
Ramano, a qualified charted accountant, got her taste for infrastructure while she was the financial director of women’s empowerment group Wiphold. In 2007 there was a shortage of cement in South Africa. The group decided to import cheaper cement from China to undercut the country’s major cement producers. The Wiphold project is still in operation, but its 300,000-ton capacity is nowhere near PPC’s eight million.
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Ramano was in two minds when she was offered the CFO position at southern Africa’s leading supplier of cement in 2011. PPC was already established and did not excite her like a new project did.
“I thought, I mean this an old company; an old image. And you look at that elephant (PPC’s logo), that elephant looks tired,” she jokes.
“But eventually I thought: you know what, with my experience, something can be done. Because normally when you are on the outside, you can help… with new ideas. And you can learn from the experienced
ones. But when you combine it, it becomes brilliant because they are used to doing things.”
Ramano broke barriers when she joined PPC. The year before, it had celebrated its centenary as a company listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) – an accomplishment that not many businesses across the globe can brag about.
Her appointment as PPC’s first woman CFO was welcomed across South Africa as a step in the right direction for women’s empowerment.
The company, which was formed in 1892, has been dominated by men over the years, but it is part of an industry that is slowly transforming.
“The industry is very tough. When I came in, I was the first woman on the executive. I had a chat with the CEO (chief executive officer) on how PPC can recruit women… because women don’t want to be where it’s not sexy. So far we have seen a number of changes,” she says.
In many regards, PPC is considered to be a leader in transformation in the construction industry. And this is largely thanks to Romano’s drive to have women at the boardroom table as well as at the bottom end.
She has set up a women’s forum specifically aimed at helping to transform PPC. In 2011, women held 18% of leadership positions in the company; just two years later, that figure has grown to more than 20%. The short-term target is 30% by 2016.
The forum’s other objectives include a pilot child care facility at PPC’s head offices in Sandton, Johannesburg, and developing a pipeline of leadership using mentoring, coaching and development programs for women in management.
PPC’s drive to transform its workforce through the women’s forum makes business sense. According to research by accounting firm Grant Thornton, companies that want to consistently outperform their rivals on the stock market, or improve sales, can do so by putting more women on their boards.
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It attributes this to the leadership behavior that women bring to the workplace, including participative decision-making, role-modeling and developing staff.
Stronger stock market growth is more likely with higher proportions of women in senior management positions. Grant Thornton’s International Business Report has found that companies with a greater proportion of women on their boards outperformed rivals, with 66% better returns on invested capital, 53% better returns on equity and 42% better sales.
Some of the firsts for PPC include that its mining planner is a woman and it has a woman dump truck driver.
Intakes into its graduate development program are mostly women, and 20% of procurement goes to women-led businesses.
The company has also redesigned overalls to make them more comfortable for women, and has implemented several diversity projects. One of these focuses on helping men to work alongside women because they are not used to members of the opposite sex being their bosses or even their equals in the workplace.
“It has been difficult for them to embrace you… but they don’t know how. Sometimes you do something, they realize you are sensitive. Sometimes, you know, you say something and they don’t understand you,” Ramano explains.
However, she firmly believes that there is no reason to ape what is considered traditional male behavior in the workplace. She maintains that if women are authentic and true to themselves, they will earn respect.
She says she often tells the women employed at PPC’s plants that they should take care of themselves and be aware of their appearances.
“Don’t be shabby. Look good and look nice; people will treat you based on who you are. Don’t be fluid.
“And I always say to women: when you (are in the boardroom), you must be visible. God gave us hips; move them so that you can have space, so that they can know that you are there,” she advises.
Ramano has had to hold her own throughout her working life, in a career that has included senior posts in both the public and private sector. She reportedly took a 30% salary cut when she moved from Rand Merchant Bank to the National Treasury.
Ramano says she chose to leave the private sector because at the time she was young, ambitious and impressed with what the government was doing with privatization and state-owned entities.
“When the opportunity came, I thought: this is a great opportunity for me to see how the government does their budgeting, how they plan for the country. I wanted to understand the macroeconomic aspect rather than reading it as an economist.”
Ramano also participated in the listing of state-owned telecommunications giant Telkom on the JSE and the New York Stock Exchange, realizing proceeds of more than $400 million to the South African government. One of her proudest achievements is closing national carrier South African Airways’ $600 million hedge book and implementing the airline’s turnaround strategy in 2004/05.
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Ramano has served on a number of boards, including Real Africa Holdings, Adcorp Holdings, Old Mutual Property Investment, the Financial Services Board, the African Union External Board of Auditors and the National Research Foundation. She is currently president of the Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals (Absip), as well as the African Women Chartered Accountants’ Forum.
It is difficult to believe that she has any time to relax, considering all of the hats she wears. The FORBES WOMAN AFRICA interview is an apt example. It was done while Ramano was eating lunch on the sidelines of an Absip conference she was co-leading.
Ramano says she is fiercely independent and tries to do as little as possible on weekends. She enjoys spending time at the nursery and in her garden.
“I love my flowers, I prune my roses. They are blooming; the Icebergs and the Just Joeys.”
Ramano’s staff are never far from her mind. She has a large vegetable garden, which keeps them in constant supply of spinach. And although numbers are her thing, at a recent PPC event she delighted 250 women by giving them jewelry she had made with her own hands.
Ramano is the ultimate multitasker. She is as confident in the boardroom as she is around her girlfriends when she lets her hair down. Women who occupy leadership positions are often under pressure to conform and underplay their feminine side.
Ramano will have none of this. As CFO of PPC, she is at the top of her game, but she knows that she had to start somewhere, hence her commitment to developing and nurturing women who are still coming up through  the ranks.

Cement’s first lady Tryphosa Ramano

August, in South Africa, will long be remembered as that fateful month when platinum stocks tumbled, dragging the Johannesburg Stock Exchange down. This was the month the police shot 34 miners near Lonmin’s Marikana mine, in Rustenburg. It will also be remembered as the first time Credit Rating Agencies downgraded South Africa since democracy in 1994.
When a country loses its rating or is downgraded, it can hurt the country’s ability to borrow money on the markets.
Credit rating agencies (CRAs) are benchmarks for the regulation of financial markets and provide investors and debtors with information about the creditworthiness of an individual, corporation, or sovereign government. CRAs were established to help measure the quantitative and qualitative risks. They also allow investors to make wiser decisions by taking into account professional risk assessment.
But over the years, CRAs have lost their credibility and have been widely criticized for having too much clout in jittery markets. They’ve even been accused of contributing to the 2008/2009 global financial crisis on the grounds that they did not do a thorough job of rating some financial instruments. They are often attacked for failing to warn of the risks posed by certain securities.
Following the events at Marikana on August 16, 2012, the top three agencies—Standard &amp; Poor’s (S&amp;P), Fitch and Moody’s Investor Services—cut South Africa’s ratings and changed the outlook to negative or stable, citing instability in the mining sector and blaming government. They were concerned by a slowing economy and rising spending pressures.
A year on, the country had a glimpse of confidence from Moody’s. It affirmed South Africa’s investment grade credit rating of Baa1 and maintained the negative credit outlook. However, it says the government’s commitment to fiscal discipline, by ensuring that debt-to-gross domestic product stabilized below 45%, moves to reduce labor unrest and plans to boost growth.
The Baa1 rating is the third lowest investment grade level and places South Africa at the same level as Mexico, Brazil, Spain and Russia. S&amp;P last upgraded South Africa in August 2005 and changed the credit outlook to negative in November 2008 following the global financial crisis.
The national treasury said that Moody’s decision is a sign of confidence in the country’s macroeconomic policy strategies, particularly given the current global economic climate. Treasury said government took proactive measures to address all the key concerns raised by Moody’s and remained committed to implementing such measures.
“Government is confident that the various measures that are being implemented will in time contribute to improved ratings for South Africa. These measures include the comprehensive reviews of both government expenditure and tax policy announced in February this year,” says treasury.
Andrew Canter, chief investment officer at Futuregrowth Asset Management, believes that credit rating agencies seem to wield a lot of power over investment decisions and that the industry’s regulator, the Financial Services Board, should have a firmer hand. He says it is important to regulate credit rating agencies to protect users and the integrity of capital markets. Canter hopes the Credit Rating Services Act, implemented in January, will enable CRAs to recapture their position of trust and credibility.
“By removing the requirement for instruments invested in to be rated, it puts accountability for investment decisions squarely on investors, instead of the false comfort of CRAs. If CRAs don’t do their jobs with diligence, care and independence they can now be held accountable for financial damages,” says Canter.
“The role of CRAs is inherently conflicted, and the new regulations reduce the role of the CRAs in markets and impose high standards on CRAs.”
However, South Africa’s political and socio-economic conditions have deteriorated in the past couple of years and risk is still on the downside. We can’t only place the blame on the global financial market crisis, but also on uncertainty surrounding critical policy decisions.
With all that said, until 1995, South Africa was the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa with a credit rating. By 2012, 17 years later, 20 countries had ratings from the three major CRAs. Foreign direct investment into Africa has increased over the last two decades. How much of this is down to their credit ratings?

The Rating Game

In the high-rise office overlooking one of the largest man-made urban forests, against the silhouette of Johannesburg’s central business district in the distance, sits Nicky Newton-King. The unassuming chief executive looks relaxed in handling one of the biggest jobs in finance.
It’s just over a year since Newton-King took over the helm of Africa’s biggest bourse and it hasn’t been easy running an exchange voted the best regulated in the world for three consecutive years. The JSE beat 141 exchanges rated by the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report.
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“It’s not the nature of the award per se, it’s the fact that we’re keeping the standards up and that builds confidence. It’s important for South Africa’s financial markets, banking system, corporate governance and accounting standards to be all rated in the top five in the world alongside the best regulated exchange recognition,” she says.
Aside from the award, the bourse has broken numerous records in the last year and recorded its best annual returns at 22%, for the first time in three years, despite a difficult, challenging and unpredictable year.
But this year will not be easy for the exchange, in Africa’s biggest economy, as the mining sector is likely to be hurt by another wave of wildcat strikes, especially if Anglo American Platinum goes ahead with its plans to lay-off 14,000 employees and mothball shafts. This could damage investor interest in the country and may persuade them to invest their money elsewhere.
Amid a struggling world economy and labor unrest, two of the biggest issues for the exchange are to address the failure of the African Board and to secure the lion’s share of primary listings. The Africa Board—an attempt to have a separate listing platform for certain countries on the continent outside South Africa—was scrapped last year after three years of struggle. It was met with lackluster demand from African firms who were more interested in listing in London. Newton-King admits many were confused as to what the board was about.
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“We didn’t hit the mark on what we wanted to do, because we ended up confusing people. Is the Africa Board something less than the main board? And clearly once you realize that you are not hitting the mark, it’s better to address that right up front,” says Newton-King.
The plan for 2013 is to work closely with 24 exchanges in Africa, without buying strategic stakes.
“If we can find a way to partner with African exchanges, so that we use what we do well and what they do well. What we do well is deep markets, lots of capital, lots of clients committed to us. What they do well is access to the clients in their home market etc. If we can partner together to provide investors through us, access to capital and that would be a win. That’s what we want to do.”
On the primary listing front, Newton-King says the JSE expects to close deals for a number of good listings this year, even though she admits the listing environment is quite slow.
Currently the exchange has 12 listed companies from elsewhere on the continent, as well as the Namibian government bond issue listed in November, which is traded in South African rands. It is the first time a sovereign bond outside South Africa is raising money on the exchange and Newton-King says she expects more from it this year.
The commodities market was recently granted approval to trade contracts on Zambian grain in dollars on the JSE. This is the first time the exchange has traded a product in US dollars.
“We can see the opportunity that opens up for us, the opportunity to potentially trade a whole lot of our other products in foreign currency. This is interesting because our clients are looking for diversification, it’s a new asset class,” added Newton-King.
With a weakening rand against the dollar and labor unrest, it’s certainly going to be a challenging year for the JSE.

The Power Behind  Africa’s Biggest Stock Exchange

Forty-five years later and now among Africa’s 30 richest people with a net worth to match–he is worth more than $545-million–Raymond Ackerman still bears the scars from the worst day of his life. The day still gnaws at his mind, fresh, like it happened yesterday. It has driven and defined his life.
“It was a Monday morning in 1966,” Ackerman, now 80, recalls. “Norman Herber, the chairman, called me in and just said you are out.”
The least Ackerman thought he deserved was an explanation. Certainly, for someone who had served the company with distinction, for the previous 15 years–at least as far as he was concerned. He had joined the retail group, Greatermans, as a 20-year-old trainee, rising through the ranks to become MD of its struggling groceries division, Checkers. He had built the besieged subsidiary from three stores to 85 by the day of his firing.
<div id="attachment_827" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-827" class="size-large wp-image-827" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/AV_00020165-766x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="634" />SOUTH AFRICA &#8211; Date unknown: Pick &#8216;n Pay Chairman, Raymond Ackerman (Photo by Gallo Images/Sunday Times)</div>
To Ackerman’s shock and horror, Herber was in no mood to explain, nor did he seem to think he owed anybody anything, least of all his underling.
“I said Norman, what went wrong? He wouldn’t explain. He just said ‘Raymond, I know we are close. But from today, you are out.’”
With his last paycheck, off went Ackerman to his wife, Wendy, who was at the time heavily pregnant with their fourth and last child. Although equally devastated, she would give her husband the best advice he ever got.
“Raymond, this is the best chance of your life–open your own business.”
But where was the capital going to come from?
As Ackerman pondered the question, he remembered an American businessman he had met during the time he was learning the ropes at Checkers. He had told him: “Business is 90% guts and 10% capital.”
For the next few months Ackerman and an accountant friend would go around speaking to a wide range of potential investors trying to convince them to buy into their business idea. About 40 backers would line up and the following year, 1967, a new retail group, Pick ’n Pay, listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Ackerman and company would start out by buying four small Cape Town stores, laying the foundations for what is today a US$6.76-billion turnover company.
Pick ’n Pay is now South Africa’s second largest food, general merchandise and clothing chain. The group boasts 775 stores, mainly in South Africa but also in neighboring countries: Botswana; Zimbabwe; Zambia; Mozambique; Namibia and Swaziland. The company is also in Mauritius. According to the latest annual report, 100 more stores are due to open over the next financial year. The company employs more than 38,000 people.
With that kind of achievement many men of Ackerman’s age would probably want to spend the rest of their lives in peace–traveling the world; looking after their grandchildren or simply tending the garden. The last thing you would expect from such an achiever is appetite for a new, if not hazardous, struggle.
Well, like an old war-horse sniffing gun-powder, Ackerman is bracing himself for a new war. In it, he wants to gallop ahead of younger stallions, including his eldest son Gareth, whom he anointed as his successor and chairman in 2010.
Ackerman discloses, during our interview, that he has drafted himself into a select and close-knit team that is working hard and spending a fortune on a battle plan to fend off marauding United States invader, the world’s biggest and ruthless retailer: Walmart.
Walmart–a multinational both feared and respected–bought a majority stake in Massmart, South Africa’s third largest retailer. It was an acquisition opposed by unions that went through a turbulent hearing at the Competition Commission in Pretoria. Many in the unions feared the company’s rough-and-ready approach to labor relations. Other South African retailers feared they’d be undercut and shoved out of the market by Walmart.
<div id="attachment_828" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-828" class="size-large wp-image-828" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/0000139705-821x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="591" />CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA ñ 28 May 2011: Businessman Raymond Ackerman receives an honorary doctorate from the University of South Africa (UNISA) in Cape Town, South Africa on 28 May 2011. (Photo by Gallo Images/Foto24/Nasief Manie)</div>
In the aftermath of regulatory approval, the US outfit made no secret of its intention to capture a much larger market share in South Africa by starting a price war with the likes of Pick ’n Pay.
“With Walmart coming, we want to be the best in every part of our business. We’ve redone our buying; we’ve redone our warehousing; and we’ve redone every aspect of our business. We are gearing ourselves for the fight, a very big fight.”
And fighting, it must be said, is something Ackerman is used to. After all he has spent a lifetime fighting his South African rivals OK and Checkers in the cut-throat world of supermarkets–where the cheapest baked beans can be a shot to the jugular.
I put to Ackerman that Walmart, with its deep pockets and huge operations around the world, could prove to be the toughest, if not most formidable, opponent he has ever faced.
“We’ve done our homework and will fight a good fight,” he says.
“I’ve studied deeply what they’ve been doing but I don’t want to get into that. I don’t think they’ve succeeded everywhere. We are looking at the weaknesses that we’ve picked up around the world, what countries they’ve done well in, what countries they’ve failed in. We are gearing ourselves to fight a good fight, not against a ruthless guy, but against a company that has shown that it’s got weaknesses.”
It also turns out that Ackerman’s much-publicized retirement, announced two years ago, never really was. Or, as he prefers to put it, he is “technically retired.”
Ackerman still goes to work everyday. He still arrives at 8am. In addition to attending to social responsibility programs, he advises the executive management team on administration and merchandising.
What happens when his son, Gareth, and his team don’t take his advice?
“I try not to interfere with the day-to-day running. They listen to some of my advice and sometimes they don’t. When they don’t take my advice I get upset but I don’t take offence. If I took offence, then they would feel that I’m interfering. It’s not easy, by the way. It’s not easy retiring when you’ve built a business from scratch.”
What some may call meddling or refusing to let go, Ackerman merely calls passion.
“I’m passionate about what I do. I want to build a company that will last forever”.
The only way to make a business last forever, Ackerman advises, is by sticking to good values–something he says he tells everyone who cares to listen to the story of his success, including the scores of entrepreneurs, business leaders and students he always gets invited to inspire and motivate.
It all goes back to advice a Professor gave Ackerman and his class back in 1949, at the University of Cape Town, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree. The lecturer asked all those who wanted to go into business so that they could make money, to put their hands up. Almost everyone raised their hands, including Ackerman. The professor then advised the class: “If you think making money is the purpose of business, you are going to fail.”
Ackerman took the advice and it is his motto to this day. It is something he says analysts always miss, whenever they examine his business performance.
“Analysts are meant to analyze a company by this triple line and corporate governance–but analysts will never ask me about what I do on social responsibility, what I do for my people. They just want to see profit…profit…profit. I want to build a company that will last forever. The analysts just want profit growth, profit growth, profit growth.”
“South Africa, in my opinion, needs desperately more businesses involved with triple line reporting. You must give back to the community. The more you give, the more you will succeed.
By giving, Pick ’n Pay removed an albatross from around its neck.
When Nelson Mandela came into power after South Africa’s first democratic election in 1994, one of his first moves was to ask the country’s white business establishment to sell a stake to their black counterparts, in a program now known as Black Economic Empowerment.
Ackerman says he grabbed the opportunity with both hands, by creating franchises for black entrepreneurs. The result was a win-win solution that helped both black entrepreneurs and Pick ’n Pay grow. Ackerman converted some of his underperforming grocery stores into franchises and has been building scores of new stores in townships. Many of the franchise stores are owned by black entrepreneurs.
“It was a major shift for Pick ’n Pay, now half our stores are franchised. I thank Mr. Mandela for influencing me,” he says.
Ackerman’s relationship with politicians, though, has been strangely ambivalent–at best.
In the dangerous days of apartheid South Africa in the 1970s and 80, when the country was in flames; many well-off whites were emigrating.
“Sure, I had misgivings about our decision to stay. Thank God we decided to stay with it,” he says.
In those difficult days, Ackerman met politicians. He vividly remembers a talk with Prime Minister, B.J. Vorster, who was in power when black students took to the streets and were mowed down in Soweto in 1976. It was on Vorster’s watch that more opponents of the apartheid regime were detained in a climate of racial conflict.
“It was quite an amazing thing, we wanted to promote black managers but it was against the Group Areas Act, [the legislation that apportioned land by race]. I went to see him [Vorster] and said we are doing it. He said, ‘I know you are doing it, and it’s against the law’. I said, ‘here are letters from ministers’ wives saying how courteous this or that manager is’. I showed him these letters that my wife had prepared. He turned around–I won’t forget that day–and said, ‘Mr. Ackerman, go ahead, even if you are breaking the law I won’t arrest you’. I asked, ‘do I have your word ? Can I have it in writing?’ He said, ‘go ahead, I won’t arrest you’. I said, ‘give it to me in writing’ and he said, ‘I won’t but you must do it’.”
In 1980, Ackerman went to see Vorster’s successor, P.W. Botha, a very stubborn man–who was called ‘Die Groot Krokodil’”, Afrikaans for ‘the big crocodile’, who oversaw the most violent years of apartheid rule. Ackerman wanted to discuss several issues, including a housing scheme he was contemplating for his black managers: “I asked him why we can’t have houses for blacks? Why not have a 99-year lease like they have in Sweden and Finland. He called in one of his ministers. I think it was Connie Mulder. After about a week of discussions, Botha came up with a 99-year-lease-hold, which was later changed to full ownership.”
Ackerman would also meet F.W. de Klerk, who was a senior Cabinet minister at the time.
“There was such a breath of fresh air about him,” Ackerman says of the man who would go on to succeed Botha, and later, release Mandela from prison.
“I’m not trying to say we played an enormous role,” Ackerman adds quickly, “but we played a role.”
Even in the so-called “new South Africa”, where there’s “tons of things going wrong,” Ackerman says he will, in his small way, continue to play a very positive role. That’s not to say he’s happy with everything that’s going on in the country.
For example, he wouldn’t mind being taxed more–a call that has been made by such people as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in part as a gesture towards reconciliation and redress. “I’d be happy to pay an extra tax to uplift and help entrepreneurs help businesses start,” Ackerman says, “but we’ve got to deal with corruption.”
He adds, however, that he always reminds people that corruption is not just in government, but also in the private sector, and that inequality and unemployment were “twenty times worse in the sixties and seventies.”
As a believer in entrepreneurship, in a free economy, he was delighted to hear South African President, Jacob Zuma, reject the calls for mine nationalization.
“You can’t create jobs through government. You need to excite the entrepreneur to invest capital and to invest in new things. I respect the fact that the government has by and large left a free economy.”
He is also delighted that government is not agreeing with the Congress of South African Trade Unions–the biggest workers union which is also an ally of the governing African National Congress–that labor brokers should be banned in South Africa.
“Unions hate labor brokers because when there’s a strike, the labor brokers come in and soften the strike and we can run the business without them. I hope he (President Zuma) doesn’t listen to labor unions. If he cuts out labor brokers he’s going to play into the hands of labor unions for strikes,” Says Ackerman.
So, when all’s said and done, what would this doyen of retailing and grandfather of 12 like to be remembered for?
“I’m not saying I’m different. I’m not saying I’m clever, I’ve just worked my whole life to rebuild myself after I was fired.”
The lesson for entrepreneurs?
“Find something you are passionate about, and make it your life’s work.”

Tag: Johannesburg Stock Exchange

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