FirstRand CEO insists banks are funding black business
Johan Burger will raise issues at the parliamentary transformation hearings
Johan Burger, CEO of FirstRand, which is SA’s largest bank by market value, says it is not true that black businesses do not receive loans from the country’s big four banks. Over the past three years, WesBank, FirstRand’s vehicle and asset finance business, had extended R7.1bn in loans to small and medium-sized black enterprises, Burger said. FirstRand had a 36% black shareholding in terms of the financial sector code definition, which imposed a 25% black shareholding on banks on a once-empowered, always-empowered basis, he said. Among FirstRand’s large shareholders are Rand Merchant Investment Holdings, whose majority shareholders are Remgro and Royal Bafokeng Holdings. The banking group’s other large shareholders include foreign and domestic institutional investors, such as pension funds, including the Public Investment Corporation. Ownership and access to financial services are some of the issues Burger will raise at next week’s parliamentary hearings into transformation in the f...
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