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More than a social club
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Stephen Cranston
Financial Mail
Friday, April 30, 2010
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In November last year the entire executive committee of the Association of Black Securities & Investment Professionals (Absip) resigned. With the departure of members of the old guard such as Cora Fernandez and Nomkhita Nqweni, the new chief lobbyist for black bankers and asset managers is Baba Mashologu.
He and his wife Marang Denalane, an executive at Sphere private equity, are the Becks and Posh of the BEE community.
The Absip president has been hard to pin down until now. The new committee has been debating its external relations policy. And in any case, like all parties to the financial sector charter, Mashologu has been gagged from talking to the media about the future of the charter (such as it is).
But he says there are many ways in which Absip can and will contribute: “We need to influence the behaviour of capital and encourage established companies to be more aggressive and innovative.”
He wants to change the nature of the Absip awards, which are given to the best black portfolio manager, corporate financier and so on. “They already recognise excellence but we need to go further and award people involved in deals that achieved something for the broader society — the Seacom undersea cable would be a good example.
“And I think we must encourage businesses to focus their expansion on Africa, which has given far better returns to SA companies than the US or the UK.”
Mashologu says he does not believe in prescribed assets in principle, but he would like to see the exact form of minister Ebrahim Patel’s proposed development bond before he passes a firm opinion on it.
“We know from the results of the Futuregrowth portfolios that infrastructure funds can give a yield well above conventional bond investments.”
Unlike the Black Management Forum, Absip’s role runs a lot further than employment equity, he says. Absip is putting forward a submission on retirement fund reform, for example. “We might seem like a talk shop, as we are best known for our investment conference and awards banquet. But I hope we will be better known for our actions over my term of office.”
Mashologu (36) has a legal background with a master’s in corporate and tax law. After two years in corporate finance at Barnard Jacobs Mellet he joined Nedbank in July 2003, when the old Nedcor Investment Bank was being reabsorbed . He has focused primarily on mergers and acquisitions. He was recently moved to head coverage, as merchant bankers call client services, for some key sectors.
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