E240M TO FUND SMES GROWTH

MBABANE – Good news is the air for SMEs. JM BUSHA Investment Group (Pty) Ltd, a social enterprise focusing on solution-driven investment management and investment banking, has set an ambitious target to list an investment fund with the Swaziland Stock Exchange (SSX) to provide access to finance to already existing local enterprises to help them achieve their growth agendas.

Joseph Busha, the Group Managing Director, said the firm has set its eyes at establishing an entity to be called Swaziland Entrepreneurs Limited (SEL). He said the primary goal of the organisation which would assists businesses across all spheres would be to provide access to finance for Small, Medium Enterprises (SME’s).

“We have already invested about E240 million towards financing businesses in the country and would love to see other companies grow by providing access to funding,” said Busha during the Annual Investment Seminar convened at Happy Valley Hotel yesterday. When probed to state the names of companies that had already benefitted in their SME’s finance programme, Busha said they were bound by bi-lateral agreements with the benefitting firms not to publicly disclose their names without their prior consent. 

The MD said the company which also deals with long-term insurance, financial risk management solutions and general financial advisory services had set a target to be submitting the application to be listed in SSX by next month. He said they had also set aside E40 million to be disbursed as funding for businesses when they go live on SSX.
JM BUSHA, established in July 2000 in South Africa - initially focusing on derivatives trading, structured investment products and quantitative investment research; he said the company had decided to venture into funding small businesses because access to finance remains a key challenge to growth.

Busha explained that SEL would be divided into three categories, companies generating revenue above E100 million; E50 to E100 million together with those between E5 million and E50 million.
The qualification criterion for the businesses that will get access to the funding will include, but not limited to, annual turnover, operational strategy, profit margins, credit history, corporate governance and overall sustainability of the business.      
In the same vein, Swaziland Chairman of the Chartered Secretaries of Southern Africa Sandile Mbhamali strongly emphasised on the importance of adhering to standard corporate governance principles to achieve growth.

He advised that businesses may have access to finance but if they do not practice good principles of corporate governance they were bound to face serious challenges that could highly threaten profitability.   

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