We are delighted to announce that the Sanlam Group has been recognised as a Level 2 B-BEEE contributor. This is testament to the success of our extensive transformation efforts both within our organisation and, more broadly, in the context of South Africa’s economy and society. In particular, we are pleased with the progress made towards transforming the Sanlam workforce to be fully reflective of the demographics of the country. As recently as 2004, our workforce was made up of 69% white employees and 31% black employees. By December 2013, our staff complement has changed significantly with 65.4% of our combined advisor and workforce now being black and 34.6% white. We are, of course, still working hard to improve these statistics through our recruitment practices and many development programmes. Sanlam is also rated highly in the areas of preferential procurement, empowerment financing, skills development and extending financial services to previously disadvantaged sectors of society. Projects such as an enterprise development partnership with the Association for Savings and Investments in South Africa (ASISA) will continue to build on our transformation successes. Historically, Sanlam has an exceptional track record of transformation. As far back as 1993 the Group was responsible for the first South African BEE deal when Metropolitan Life was sold to a black group, New Africa Investments Limited (NAIL). We reached another major milestone in our transformation journey recently with the maturation of the Ubuntu-Botho BEE transaction. The deal saw a broad-based black group led by the successful business entrepreneur Patrice Motsepe effectively own a 14% stake in the Sanlam Group and this created R15 billion in value. To date, this makes it arguably one of the most successful deals of its kind. While continuing to report on the requirements of the B-BEEE scorecard, we remain committed to our long-term vision of moving beyond compliance to a more meaningful, outcomes-based measurement of transformational initiatives. We aim to foster a deeper appreciation across the business of the importance of transformation to our long-term sustainability, thereby ensuring that our efforts continue to deliver worthwhile results. Sanlam values you deeply as a client and trusts that you will be pleased to hear of our progress in this regard.
