Lebashe is a 100% black-owned unlisted investment holding company with an experienced, multi-faceted management team. The Company has grown significantly since inception and the vision is to become a leading African investment company by focusing on four core investment silos: Financial Services , Technology Media and Telecommunications, Complementary Sector and Mining & Resources.
At Lebashe’s core, is an aim to create a balance sheet that outlives its creators and produces generational wealth by establishing a conglomerate of companies that can collectively operate in an eco-system. Lebashe will become a template for aggregating and partnering entrepreneurs with a vision of building a legacy balance sheet.
GROUP STRUCTURE
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Lebashe’s portfolio of companies is supported by directors whose experience and skills are complimentary and their collective effort is greater than the sum of the parts. The exposure to and involvement in the operations and offerings of Lebashe’s investee companies has grown the knowledge and skill-set of the team. Lebashe continues to seek further opportunities to actively garner the operational and market expertise with an aim to fulfill its strategy of becoming a leader, both as an investor and operator, in its field.
Mr. Tshepo Mahloele is the presiding Chairman and the founder of the Lebashe Investment holding group. A Rhodes Scholar with over 20 years of experience in private equity, investment banking and project finance, Tshepo has held various executive positions in leading financial institutions such as the Development Bank of Southern Africa, the Commonwealth Development Corporation and the Isibaya Fund Division of the Public Investment Corporation. He also serves as a board member to various Pan African companies, particularly in the field of infrastructure.
Tshepo is also Chairman of Arena Holdings, one of Africa’s largest English-language news publishers, and he is Group Executive Director at Harith General Partners of which he was co-founder together with the Public Investment Corporation. Harith is a specialist infrastructure company investing in infrastructure across the African continent with several signature investments
Mr. Warren Wheatley CA(SA), CFP, Post Graduate Diploma in Corporate Finance, Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Planning Law, Post Graduate Diploma in Auditing. Warren Wheatley is the Chief Investment Officer of Lebashe Investment Group along with being one of the founding principals. Warren serves as a non-executive director on the board of Arena Holdings and chairman of the Joint Investment Committee of the Telkom Retirement Fund.
Warren gained a significant amount of experience whilst he worked as an Investment Banker and Wealth Manager at ABSA Capital. Here, he managed a portfolio of ultra-high net worth families and their investment decisions. Prior to this, Warren was at Alexander Forbes and served in various roles within the institutional consulting and actuarial business. Being head of one of the Consulting and Actuarial Branch in Sandton coupled with his previous experience of being Principal Consultant to a number of high profile corporate clients gave Warren further exposure in the investments arena.
Mr. Jabu Moleketi holds a postgraduate economic and management qualifications from the University of London and Advanced Management Diploma from Harvard Business School. He is the former Deputy Minister of Finance of the Republic of South Africa, and Gauteng Provence MEC of Finance and Economic Affairs.
He is non-executive Chairman of Harith Fund Managers and PPC Limited. He has extensive international exposure, extensive strategic leadership skills and in-depth corporate governance experience in both the public and private sectors, having served on the boards of several listed companies over the past ten years
BALANCE SHEET RESTRUCTURE
During the first quarter of 2018, we undertook a debt and balance sheet re-organisation. The purpose of the restructure was to achieve the following:
- Structure the financial services business units under a single structure which allowed for potential synergies and cross selling opportunities to be optimised;
- Organise the various businesses into a structure that would facilitate either additional investors (staff and/or share financed acquisitions) or the sale or listing of the group;
- Repay current debt and replace with longer term debt instruments to match the asset and cash flow profile of the group;
- To create access to accumulated equity, for growth purposes, without having to sell assets or incur expensive short-term debt.
To that end, Lebashe approached the capital markets for funding.
The following institutions were approached: Investec, Standard Bank, PIC, JP Morgan, Sanlam, ABSA and Deutsche Bank.
Having received proposal from most of the approached funders and following a rigorous assessment and ranking process, we accepted funding from ABSA Capital.