South Africa’s Public Investment Corporation has promoted its chief investment officer, Daniel Matjila, to the position of Chief Executive, the country’s finance minister has announced.
State-owned PIC, with $139 billion under management, is Africa’s biggest and most powerful fund manager. And its new CEO Daniel Matjila has been regarded as highly influential, prior to his latest appointment as the corp’s boss.
Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene described Matjila, who joined the PIC in 2003, as “a strategic thinker who has extensive knowledge of and experience in asset management and investment”.
Resignation of Former PIC Boss
The PIC has been without a permanent chief executive since May when Elias Masilela abruptly resigned. Masilela, who had been in the role since 2011, never provided an explanation for his decision. Under him the Fund moved from investing in only South Africa to buying stakes around the continent.
In 2013 it acquired 1.5 percent of Dangote Cement, Nigeria’s largest listed company, in a deal valued at $289.3 million. Before that, the fund manager also bought 19.58 percent of pan-African bank, Ecobank Transnational. The transaction was worth $250 million.
PIC’s Enormous Influence
The PIC has also been very active in flexing its investment muscle as JSE’s biggest investor on the course of companies in which it has a stake. The wealth fund also uses its influence as a top shareholder in several companies to advocate for greater black representation amongst company executives and shareholders. This is in line with its mandate to contribute in the redress of the huge economic imbalances created by apartheid and colonialism.
The Financial Times reports that the PIC was a key critic of Cynthia Carroll when she was chief executive of Anglo American, a company in which it holds the single largest shareholding, and is understood to have actively pushed for her ouster before she resigned in 2012. The fund is also reported to have aggressively and successfully led resistance to a $1.2 billion bid by Chile’s CFR Pharmaceuticals to acquire Adcock Ingram, a struggling South African firm.
However, the PIC has also been criticised for being influenced by political motivations, rather than acting purely in the interests of pension funds. (VENTURES AFRICA)
