Creating A Major Black Property Player

The proposed BEE merger in the property sector between Delta Property Fund and Rebosis Property Fund should be wholly supported to advance BEE.

there is no denying that black economic empowerment (BEE) has taken a huge step backwards over the last decade, slowing down the wealth accumulation by black people which started in 1994 under the presidency of Nelson Mandela and gained momentum during the nine-year reign of his successor, Thabo Mbeki.

In the years leading up to the global recession of 2008 and 2009, South Africa saw a string of headline-grabbing blockbuster BEE transactions being concluded, whereby a number of black consortia bought minority stakes in JSE-listed, white-led companies.

After the recession, JSE-related BEE deals dried up and organised black business switched its attention to state procurement to generate wealth. Occasionally, the lull in large-scale BEE deals has been interrupted by mergers between black firms themselves. Although these transactions are rare, they were hailed as a sign of BEE coming of age as a concept when we started seeing BEE mergers since 2010.

The driver of these mergers was necessitated by BEE companies’ need to weather the storm to protect their revenues, while simultaneously positioning themselves to grow their market shares in the event the economy recovered. The reality is that the SA economy has not bounced back from the recession and the consolidation of BEE companies has continued, while other first-generation firms folded.