Team SA not at full strength in New York meeting

A finance ministry request to hold the annual New York investor conference later than usual in 2017 means that some of the large listed companies that attended previous conferences will not be there.

But ahead of the fifth SA Tomorrow investor conference, which starts in New York on Wednesday evening, JSE CEO Nicky Newton-King said on Tuesday that there had been plenty of interest from US investors and that SA needed to be out there talking to investors, despite a challenging context.

The conference, which provides a platform for South African business and government leaders to meet large US fund managers, has traditionally been held just before the IMFWorld Bank annual meetings in Washington, but Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba’s team asked that it be scheduled after the medium-term budget in 2017.

That means that some of the JSE-listed companies that usually attend will be in the midst of board and annual general meeting cycles and cannot attend.

The CEOs of 16 JSE-listed companies as well as of Eskom and Transnet will be at the conference, which will be attended by 140 US investors. Gigaba and Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago and several CEOs are scheduled to speak.

The conference is sponsored by the JSE, UBS, Standard Bank and Old Mutual.

The numbers are only marginally down compared with 2016, but the mix is different. One notable absence is that of Telkom chairman Jabu Mabuza, who is also president of Business Leadership SA and of Business Unity SA and leads the CEO Initiative.

In contrast with 2016’s conference, at which business, through the CEO Initiative, worked closely with the government and labour on the message to investors, the level of engagement has been lower this time, Newton-King said.

“Last year, we were talking about SA with a united voice,” she said.