Botswana Insurance Holdings Limited’s asset and investment subsidiary -BIFM -is empowering its citizen employees big, after establishing a trust last month (December) which will enable employees to own part of the company under a share plan scheme.
An extraordinary meeting of shareholders will take place next month to approve and adopt the employee share plan scheme which falls under the trust. If the proposal gets the nod, Botswana Investment Fund Management (BIFM), which has billions of Pula under its care, will release a total of 21, 849, 246 shares to its employees.
This represents 25, 1 percent of BIFM’s issued share capital. BIFM is headed by Neo Bogatsu who has over 20 years of experience in the financial services sector. “The fair value of such shares has been determined by an independent external valuation exercise,” said a notice issued by BIHL Chief Executive Officer, Catherine Lesetedi-Letegele.
On inception, 15 percent of the ordinary issued shares of BIFM will be subscribed to by citizen employees to be held under a trust which is made up of Letegele, Andre Roux, Mahube Mpugwa, Kudakwashi Mukushi and Gerrit Lodewyk Van Heerde.
According to the notice, ‘In the event of these shares not being fully subscribed on the initial issuance of the scheme, the balance of the shares will be transferred to the trust for future allocation.’ The empowerment scheme is being established by the company as one way of retaining its employees, who in the end can successfully drive the company’s strategic plans.
“The company believes the implementation of the scheme will enable BIFM to structure a competitive remuneration package, which is designed as an additional incentive tool to reward and retain executives and quality employees,” said a notice. All citizen employees including executive directors are eligible to participate in the scheme.
BIFM offers investment services and products to retail and institutional investors. It also manages assets outside the country. Writing in the group annual report for 2016, Bogatsu stated: Despite the 2016 financial year being characterised by a lot of uncertainty in the global political landscape and economic landscape locally, the business remained resilient and as a consequence we saw the Assets under Management (AuM) increase by P5 billion to P25.9 billion as at 31 December 2016.
“For us 2016 was a year of building the strategic blocks and foundation for the business and ensuring that going forward the business remains sustainable and able to protect, diversify and grow the existing client base’
It remains to be seen how BIFM performed last year. BIHL will release its year end results, which include that of BIFM in two months’ time.