Savca appoints two new board members amid industry growth

The Southern African Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (Savca) has appointed two new directors and reappointed one existing director to its board.

Savca announced the appointments of Fulu Makwetla, founding partner of Third Way Investment Partners, and Kabelo Moja, managing director of Ascension Capital Partners last week, following its annual general meeting held on Wednesday (2 October) in Johannesburg.

In addition, Savca announced that Samantha Pokroy, founder and CEO of Sanari Capital, has being reappointed.

Savca has appointed two new directors to its board and re-appointed a third member

Makwetla is also a non-executive director of All Weather Capital and Fundi Capital, and serves on the investment committee of RH Bophelo. She was previously the Investment Manager of the Government Employees Pension Fund (GEPF) and represented GEPF on several advisory boards of Private Equity Funds on the African continent.

This, while Moja is a qualified and admitted attorney of the High Court. In his prior roles, Kabelo has been principally involved in the structuring and implementation of commercial and private equity transactions.’

‘Board has extensive experience’

Savca CEO Tanya van Lill (pictured above) said in a statement last week that the new board appointments complement a board that already comprises of individuals with “extensive” industry and business experience.

As noted by the recent Savca 2019 Private Equity Industry Survey (opens as a PDF), SA private equity exhibited a considerable increase in investment activity in 2018, with the value of new investments and follow-on investments reaching a record-high of R35.4-billion, compared to an annual average of R15.2-billion over the preceding 10 years.

Similarly, the Savca 2019 Venture Capital Industry Survey (opens as a PDF), released last month, reported robust industry growth in 2018, with 181 new Venture Capital deals reported — an increase of 13.8% from the 159 deals reported in 2017, with over R1.5-billion in VC investments in 2018 (see this story).

Van Lill said the board bids farewell to two current directors Lungile Mdluli, who served as treasurer and chairperson of the association’s fiscal committee from 2015, and Juan Coetzer, who joined the board in 2017 and served on the research and membership committees.

“Through their varied roles, Lungile and Juan contributed significantly to the success of our organisation by dedicating an invaluable amount of their time and wisdom.

“We would like to thank them for their service and continued role in shaping the future of the industry,” van Lill said.

Read more: Savca selects 13 participants for fund manager development programme
Read more: SA had bumper VC year in 2018 with investments up 31% over 2017, reveals report

Featured image: Savca CEO Tanya van Lill (Supplied)