Managing Director's review

In April 2005 we proudly announced our empowerment deal to overwhelmingly positive response from stakeholders. The transaction was described as “groundbreaking” and “‘innovative”, which is gratifying on several levels. It is just reward for the many people who put in many hours of work and personal sacrifice to ensure the deal was more than just an equity transaction. It is particularly rewarding because the deal set out to benefit the country, communities, our people, and our shareholders. We wanted, from the outset, to remain true to our ideal of broad-based black economic empowerment. The response we received, and which I have mentioned already, suggests we have met many of our objectives.

Our view has always been that any successful transaction must be based on both moral and sound business principles. In other words, we believed our empowerment partners must have a fundamental role to play in further developing Old Mutual (SA) as a business, within the South African context. Our partners, the WIPHOLD and Brimstone consortia, shared this philosophy and have taken up the challenge to be active in our business by adding their own particular dimensions to our operations.

As a result of a structured performance contract, our partners and our line managers are working together to ensure Old Mutual (SA) is improving and developing in critical areas: management is becoming more representative of our national demography, procurement is strongly in favour of black and emerging business, we are delivering to our community through corporate social investment initiatives, we are making critical investments into rebuilding South Africa, and we are increasingly offering products that South Africans want and need.

Of course, these are early days yet, but with the successful track record we have already built up, we are optimistic about the role Old Mutual (SA) is positioned to play in growing our economy. We are excited about the future and about the role our empowerment partners are taking up to ensure we are the most stimulating financial services company in South Africa, and therefore the sector’s employer of choice. Our excitement is compounded by the particular sensitivities, knowledge, insight and networking that our partners offer in the broad areas of human capital development, procurement, enterprise development, corporate social investment and the requirements for economic growth. We will be an immeasurably stronger company with an enhanced relevance to our exciting country because of their contribution.

Roddy Sparks