BEE Partner, South Africa Economy Watch

It is substantially more difficult to prove that a business, which is about to be started, will in fact be successful. Such a venture has no historical audited financial statements reflecting a good profit history. Funders of such ventures are by nature extremely suspicious, and always look for some form of concrete evidence that a start-up business venture will succeed. Read the rest of this entry »

Does international evidence suggest who the best empowerment partner might be? The answer is that the present employees of the company are in many cases the best bet. After all, from CEO down to the gatekeeper, they run the company every working day. Read the rest of this entry »

The current BEE Act, the First Code of Good Practice and the BEE strategy document, all released in 2003, are the cornerstones of government’s plan to give impetus to broad-based empowerment by 2014. This legislation has direct bearing on the current BEE requirements for your business, and as a consequence needs to be studied in some detail. Read the rest of this entry »

Becoming an empowered company is not good enough. Soon all your competitors will have achieved similar status. Your company will need to do better than that. Whoever has undertaken the transformation process in the best way will be the winners, not those who have merely transformed. The key lies in transforming your business to become black empowered while simultaneously creating a sustainable competitive advantage. Read the rest of this entry »

An economic BEE transformation is a business necessity as a consequence of the following imperatives:

A moral imperative: The National Party came to power in 198 implemented the policy of apartheid. Economic repression led 4 to the expropriation of black property not already expropriated under the Land Act. There was widespread exclusion from the economy on the basis of race. In addition, white capitalists exploited black labour. Read the rest of this entry »

Again this is a principle that applies exclusively to measuring ownership contributions. The principle has many different names, such as “one time all time”, “high water mark” and “continuing consequences”. When companies first started engaging in BEE, before there were standard measurement principles, they made the assumption that once they had sold a BEE stake, they would be able to recognise this contribution to BEE regardless of whether the BEE party remained in the investment or not. Read the rest of this entry »

A common misperception of ownership is that it relates to economic return exclusively. When ownership is broken down it includes two primary rights. The one is economic return and the other is control, or influence, over decision making, which is exercised through voting rights. Read the rest of this entry »

BEE Party’s Net value calculation

The net value calculation is broken down into two formulae and draws from the deemed net value result above. The first, Formula A, calculates the debt-free ownership as calculated above, as a percentage of the targeted debt-free ownership for the year, measured as a pro-rata score against the allocated points. Read the rest of this entry »

BEE Enterprise Net value

The net value is determined by calculating the current market value of the asset in relation to the current market value of the acquisition debt. Where the value of the asset increases in relation to the debt, the net value points will increase. Read the rest of this entry »

The general broad-based ownership scheme will only receive recognition as Black owned where it satisfies the conditions stated in Section 1 Annexure 100B of Statement 100, which are as follows: Read the rest of this entry »

Trusts are commonly used by small business owners as an asset protection mechanism. The protection is normally used in the form of a family trust. The Codes do not intend restricting a BEE party’s use of family trusts to protect assets. Read the rest of this entry »

There is much detail in this section. It is, arguably, one of the most important issues in the context of BEE. BEE, and particularly ownership, has developed a bad name because the wrong partners have been sought. It is all very well to have a paternalistic approach and give ownership to staff members or some unfortunate person, but is this a sound business principle? It may be, but normally it is not. The point is, if an empowerment deal is not based on sound business principles, then a sustainable relationship is unlikely. Read the rest of this entry »

Since large residual white populations remained in southern Africa after independence, a considerable degree of accommodation has been required to reduce conflict between the owners of the resources and the new majority “owners” of the state. South Africa’s 4.5 million whites continue to dominate industry, commercial agriculture, the financial sector, mining, and the vast majority of agricultural lands and resources. Read the rest of this entry »

Potential partners should be courted before finalising the partnership, This can be done by offering the Black party a position on the board or management to assess the fit of the respective parties. Small business may not ordinarily hold board meetings although it may become a useful practice. A board meeting that includes the business’s accountant, BEE party and other relevant parties is a beneficial exercise. Apart from this it is also good business practice. Read the rest of this entry »

The parties involved in the structuring of a deal vary according to the size of the deal. The professional fees for listed deals can reach as high as R10 million rand just for the opinion of the various parties involved in the structure. Put in context with the size of the deals, however, this is not as extreme as it appears. QSE deals will need fewer and leis expensive professionals and the costs will be reduced to a fraction this amount. Read the rest of this entry »

As a result of historical circumstances, Black people wanting to get involved in business usually have limited access to finance.

There are relatively few empowerment companies who want to buy equity stakes in small business. It is also unlikely that a business owner or employee has the knowledge to obtain empowerment funding to buy the equity. Read the rest of this entry »

Developing Black intellectual capacity

Developing Black intellectual capacity may appear to be irrelevant to QSE business. It is not as if most professional services firms such as accountants, attorneys, engineers and doctors fall into the QSE category. These professional services are at the heart of developing the country’s intellectual capacity. This section is critical to these professions.

There is little confidence in Black people by both Black and white people. It is that simple. The previous education system did not provide Black people with an equivalent education to white people. When a Black person enters the market an assumption is made that he or she does not have the same “mental prowess” as a white person. The result is an inherent lack of confidence in Black people.

Who have the least confidence in Black people? Strangely enough, Black people do. One seldom hears of Black people consulting Black attorneys on mergers and acquisitions. They go to white attorneys because they do not have confidence in their Black counterparts. Read the rest of this entry »

Split compliance targets

The employment equity scorecard splits the compliance targets between 0 to 5 years and 6 to 10 years. The Codes acknowledge that transformation is not going to be an overnight phenomenon and that businesses will take a while to establish Black people in relevant employment positions. They have provided moderate targets for the first five years in consideration of this. Overnight transformation strategies are unlikely to result in sustainable development.

The management indicator

The majority of points, 15, are allocated to this indicator. The management indicator is subject to the gender adjustor and full points will only be scored where 50% of the management targets for Black people are held by Black women. The targets are split. The target for 0 to 5 years is 40% of total management and the target for 6 to 10 years is 60% of total management positions that should be held by Black people. Read the rest of this entry »

Net remuneration

This represents the amount of remuneration after deducting the following:

• current and arrear contributions, within specified limits, to approved pension and/or retirement annuity funds that the employer is entitled or required to deduct from the employee’s remuneration
• at the option of the employer, current and arrears retirement annuity fund contributions, within specified limits, which the employee has paid directly to the fund, provided the employee furnishes the employer with proof of payment; such proof of payment must be obtained annually by the employer from the employee (or when the employee terminates employment, if earlier) and retained for inspection purposes

Medical aid scheme contributions in the case of persons aged 65 or older. Read the rest of this entry »

The QSE skills development scorecard only contains one indicator. It is significantly simpler than skills development of non-QSE businesses and easier to obtain a higher score. Unfortunately, because the target is based on terms and calculations used in the Skills Development Levies Act, the SDLA, this is a technical section.

Indicator terminology

Leviable amount

The leviable amount is derived from the SDLA. It the amount that the levy that must be paid to the SETA is calculated on. BEE uses the same calculation and therefore terminology, but sets a target over and above that payable to the SETA. The scorecard sets the target for the indicator as 2% of the leviable amount for QSEs. Essentially, the leviable amount is the annual total net salaries and wages payable by the entity. Read the rest of this entry »