SOUTH AFRICAN FUTURE
SOUTH AFRICAN FUTURE TRUST The inaugural South African Future Trust Summit was a great success CEO Nico Jacobs reflects on the event and outlines how the South African Future Trust is redirecting its operations to encourage and support entrepreneurs, having started life as a Covid-support fund. Biography Nico Jacobs, CEO of the South African Future Trust, has vast corporate experience across retail, finance, FMCG and telecommunications. During his tenure as Head of the Small Business Banking Division of a large commercial bank, he produced a documentary on the five key qualities of successful business owners. He has a passion for entrepreneurship with business interests across the manufacturing, engineering, technology, property, agriculture and craft sectors. Pictured at the South African Future Trust Summit, left to right, Nico Jacobs, SAFT CEO, two beneficiaries of the Trust, and Jonathan Oppenheimer of the Oppenheimer Generations Foundation, a founder of the Trust. How did the South African Future Trust come into being? The Oppenheimers generously donated R1-billion with some partners to Covid relief: it went to small business staff members’ accounts. The business owner stood surety on that facility and it was payable in December 2025, probably the softest loan ever. Many business owners said that the loan not only helped them pay their salaries, but they were able to retain their good staff. We started in 2020 and as money started coming in from repayments, we gave some discounts away, because there was no good reason to pay earlier. Then we had conversations about “What now?” Covid was not there, but how do you still keep looking after this vital sector of the economy? That’s what we’re really excited about. Was the funding sector-neutral? It was first come, first served, and there were certain criteria such as they’ve had to be two years or older, they had to be in good standing and compliant. In visiting clients, I have been to franchise owners of FMCGs. I have been to printers, manufacturing floors, logistics companies, legal companies, cleaning services and to security companies, so it’s across the whole board and not industry specific at all and 2.0 won’t be industry specific either. How was the money disbursed? We asked six retail banks to look into their customer base and make facilities available so that R1-billion in total was dispersed to the banks. There were 40 000 applications of which 10 000 were successful. And that became a post-Covid funding vehicle for SMMEs? We had to pivot. The money we have got back is substantial enough to start looking at the 2.0 model. We will not be giving interest-free Covid loans away but a lot of work now is being placed into spaces where we look at how we can support SMMEs and the SMME environment. A business owner might think they need financial support but if they get good access to market and if they look after their cash flows properly then perhaps they only need guidance. Sometimes it’s really about unlocking that latent potential or energy in the SMME themselves to understand cash flow or pricing. How do we get them help to price properly? Please tell us about the summit. The aim of this first summit was really based on a lot of the conversations we had with our banking partners, grantees, customers and various stakeholders. Similar themes came up with 22 | www.opportunityonline.co.za
SOUTH AFRICAN FUTURE TRUST all of them. The first of them was that they felt like they had been a few rounds with Mike Tyson: all battered and bruised after Covid, straight into loadshedding and then into other issues. Just one blow after the other. The second one was based on saying there are so many things that are required to get my business up and running. Even if I find my ojo again, I am facing all these different constraints like access to finance, access to information, access to marketplace, access to supplier chain and all those things. They technically understand what they are looking to do, but running a business is very different to just installing an air-conditioning unit, for example, and we found a lot of knowledge gaps. How many entrepreneurs attended the summit? About 500 business owners were at the conference at Gallagher Estate and some were exhibiting and showcasing their wares. In addition, we had some of the bigger corporates such as Samsung and Core Group that are also part of the ecosystem, together with funding institutions. Stories of resilience and resourcefulness provided inspiration. “Unlocking that latent potential or energy in the SMME” What were the organising principles of the summit? The summit was put together in terms of three key factors. One was to inspire, let’s get it back and create inspiration because if you feel demotivated and dejected there is nothing better than somebody telling their story of how they also felt the blows, but look how successful they are today. The second component was to get a sense of what is happening out there through a very interesting panel discussion with the Gauteng MEC for Economic Development, Tasneem Motara, with Herman Mashaba (representing both the public and private sector, being an entrepreneur himself) and Jonathan Oppenheimer looking at the world of business and the world of philanthropy. The question we asked ourselves is, if we’re going to get this right and get the country back on track? The panel discussion looked at the roles of government, the private sector and philanthropy and how do we get our act together and start working together as opposed to pointing fingers at each other. Finally, our goal was to showcase to entrepreneurs what is coming in the future. What is shaping the environment and how will your business develop in the future? How were the aspects of the future environment presented? Four master classes were presented. The first one dealt the tech side, called Innovate or Stagnate. We asked the question: Is your business tech savvy enough? From simple technology such as pretelemetric in your delivery vehicles to the use of ChatGPT or AI. What tech can your business use: data, information, systems, processing and so on? We had the well-known Dr Adam Pantanowitz, Chair in Innovation and Director of the Wits Innovation Centre, leading those sessions. The second master class was led by Rich Mulholland who spoke about the six deadly sins in your business, things you should never do. For example, what’s the impact of having too much pride in your business and never learning from people and thinking you know everything. We then had Polo Leteka, who is with the IDF Capital and has invested in countless businesses over the years. She gave enterprise owners an understanding of what investors are looking for – in your management team, your product, your RMD space, how established is your management team, how solid is your product set, who is your competitor and what’s your unique different compelling offering? This was a deep master class in terms of saying get your business ready if you want to sell it. Richard Sutton wrote the book called The Stress Code: From Surviving to Thriving and his master class was different from all the others. While the other three were technical about a business owner and his business, technology and investments, this one was more about the business owner himself and looking after yourself. Was there a follow-up programme from the master classes? The beauty about all four master classes is that they came with a tool book which was very specific in terms of help and support. This included the good books to read by authors that represent having actually lived it and taken the hard knocks. Every single delegate left for home with a tool book from every speaker with Acclaimed author Richard Sutton presented a master class at the summit. www.opportunityonline.co.za | 23
