Transformation continues to advance across the three business units, Financial Services, Risk and Insurance Services and multi-manager Investment Solutions at Alexander Forbes. The group today announced the status of a Level 3 (in terms of the DTI codes) contributor to Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBB-EE) conferred by rating agency Empowerdex, two years ahead of its internal targets.
Alexander Forbes’ commitment to transformation goes beyond simply complying with legislation, explained Transformation Head Donray Malabie. “We are committed to creating realistic, meaningful and sustainable broad-based opportunities in partnership with those previously denied such prospects. In that we were hoping to achieve a Level 3 rating by 2011, we are particularly pleased to have accelerated our activities to beat our own targets,” he concluded.
A Level 3 contributor to broad-based BEE indicates that for every R1 spent with Alexander Forbes, a procurement partner can claim R1.10 and confirms that the company is complying 110% with the codes of good practice on BBB-EE which were gazetted by the Department of Trade and Industry in 2007.
“This achievement does not only benefit our procurement partners but the broader society, which includes communities and students at tertiary level through our well-structure community development programmes,” added Malabie.
For the period reviewed, an estimated 70% of the Alexander Forbes SA businesses’ balance sheet was under black management at the group, boosted by a meaningful number of other black senior appointments.
Derrick Msibi has taken up the helm of Investment Solutions and Tutu Madungandaba has been appointed Managing Director of the Risk Services division. The recent appointments of Adv. Vuyani Ngalwana as an independent non-executive director along with Len Konar who is also chair of the Board’s Audit Committee, and Vishnu Naicker as Head of Risk for the Group have also strengthened the group’s ability to monitor and manage governance and risk issues affecting Alexander Forbes and support Chairman Sello Moloko.
“As a business focused on building and protecting its clients’ assets, it is important that Alexander Forbes reflects the demographics and the economy which it serves,” said CEO Bruce Campbell.
Group HR Director Mpho Nkeli concurred: “We have adopted a holistic approach to achieving sustainable transformation. For example, seven years ago the black staff compliment was 30%, now it is over 50% and 67% of all new recruits are black.”
R17 million has been committed by the business to drive enterprise development projects such as the ‘adopt-a-panel-beater’ initiative, which empowers and develops disadvantaged black-owned auto body repairers as incubators. Another partner to Alexander Forbes is the Wealth Generation Company, an initiative they support which educates and empowers consumers to make informed financial decisions in support of personal wealth creation.
The company spent R1.1 billion on procurement with service providers that were BBB-EE compliant during the previous financial year.
“These initiatives are contributing to the broader BBB-EE vision of developing and creating an enabling environment for small medium enterprises to access mainstream economic opportunities,” said Campbell.
“Meaningful transformation comes with the creation of sustainable efforts in all facets of BBB-EE and Alexander Forbes has a role to play in realising the government’s vision of an economic climate accessible to all South Africans,” he concluded.
Get the latest issue of FAnews