Kagiso Trust Investments (KTI) is the investment arm of Kagiso Trust. Its primary investments are in financial services, media, industrial, property and more recently, mining.

KTI has developed a solid reputation in the market for being a pioneer in black economic empowerment (BEE), and for conducting business with utmost integrity. We apply our founding philosophy at all times:

We have continued to transform in pursuit of our aim to become the pre-eminent empowerment BEE group in South and Southern Africa, and to adapt to a dynamic business environment while serving our shareholders even better – particularly the Trust. We have continued to add to the Group’s core assets in order to enhance our service offering to our clients.

Adapting to the evolving environment means being well positioned for the era beyond BEE. Kagiso has indeed moved away from opportunistic trading in assets, seeking rather to exert influence over core strategic holdings where we can demonstrate expertise. To this end, we are consolidating our businesses around two strategic pillars: financial services on the one hand, and industrial and ICT on the other.

KTI’s corporate DNA will mark all its investment and operational activities. The overarching element in this DNA is trust: the difference is trust. We build trust in our relationships with clients, partners and all stakeholders. This is our legacy and ethos.

Other components of the DNA are a spirit of entrepreneurship, consistency and reliability, and leadership in all we do. This shift in investment philosophy will yield a number of benefits. The structural and management re-engineering aligns structure with strategy at all levels; we have the ability to acquire targeted enterprises in selected segments to build scale; we will cluster businesses into segments led by dedicated executives; and with our clearer vision, we will continue pursuing controlling stakes in current and prospective investments.

We will also use our position to provide unencumbered funding. KTI has grown from an initial capital base of R26 million in 1993 to a conservative enterprise value of approximately R5 billion in 2007. Kagiso Media, Metropolitan Group, the various financial advisory businesses and Kagiso Ventures (the primary investment vehicle of the Kagiso Group) are the main drivers of KTI’s growth. KTI is unique in the BEE space as it has access to operational cashflows via its media, industrial and financial assets. We recently undertook an external debtraising exercise, and we are the first BEE group that has issued rated paper in the debt market.

Through the Kagiso Trust, we continue to show our commitment to developing communities and socio-economic empowerment. Our new strategy strengthens this commitment further.

Finally, the passing away of two key figures, co-founder and chairman of KTI, Eric Molobi (5 June 2006) and chairman of Kagiso Trust, Yunus Mahomed (6 January 2008), has underlined the immense contributions that both have made to the development of the Kagiso Group as a whole. We pay tribute to the dedicated, strong leadership and direction that Eric and Yunus provided and the incomparable legacy that they have left for us to follow.

Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu
Non-executive chairman