Times Of Swaziland: E240M TO FUND  SMES GROWTH

E240M TO FUND  SMES GROWTH
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  BY KWANELE DHLADHLA   on 27/02/2018 02:56:00


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.