THE Public Investment Corporation (PIC), SA’s largest money manager, is working on bedding down an industrial sector-based investment in another African country before the end of the year.
This is part of the PIC’s bid to fulfil its mandate of deploying 5% of its assets under management to developmental ventures on the African continent. The PIC manages just over R1-trillion of funds on behalf of the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF).
PIC CEO Elias Masilela did not want to be drawn on the nature of the deal last week, saying the matter was delicate and awaiting approval from the GEPF and his investment team before he could disclose details.
But Business Day understands that the deal involves a company involved in the cement industry.
"There has been some progress," Mr Masilela said. "The guys (PIC’s investment team) have been on the continent generally every month. There’s going to be a few things that will be concluded soon. It’s more than one deal that we are looking at. It’s in two regions that we are looking at now," he said.
Asked about the amounts and companies involved, Mr Masilela did not want to commit.
"I would not want to indicate. The transactions are delicate.... "
The PIC’s major investment in the rest of Africa is in the Togo headquartered pan-African bank Ecobank. PIC owns a 20% stake after investing $250m in the bank. Ecobank has a presence in 32 African countries and has a partnership with Nedbank.
The PIC has also been exploring partnerships with South African retailers that want to expand into the rest of Africa. The plan here is to explore developing malls that will house the retailers. Other opportunities that the PIC has identified are in resources and listed equities on the continent. However, there is a challenge with the equities market as there is not a lot of liquidity.
"It’s a very difficult area of investment. The markets are small and by default we will have to look at other deals such as private equity and debt," Mr Masilela said.
He said the big task for the PIC in the short term was to bed down the Africa strategy and ensure that the money manager had the capacity to operate on the continent.
The plan is to bolster the skills base that the PIC has on Africa. However, Mr Masilela said there were no plans to open up offices in other African countries.
Source : bdlive.co
