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RMB Ventures seeks out businesses with a sustainable competitive advantage. We seek management teams who are passionate about their businesses, their employees, customers, communities and all who play a part in their success. We look for robust cash flows, but appreciate cash is sometimes required to invest for growth.
We invest in all sectors of the economy other than primary mining and passive real estate. We will selectively invest in the agricultural sector. We generally do not invest in listed companies, but are comfortable with public to private transactions.
We have limited appetite for venture capital, but may fund a solution for early stage investments in our portfolio companies. Here they can be incubated and supported, improving their chances of success.
We have invested across most of Southern Africa, but our focus is largely on South Africa and its neighbouring countries, as well as East Africa. Our investments in East Africa are directly via RMB Ventures or through our partners, Cassia Capital.
We deeply invest ourselves in each and every portfolio company to ensure we can add as much value with our skills, experience and networks across the FirstRand group and beyond. We are not management. Our role is to support their efforts to sustain and grow our businesses. We provide guidance and experience in the following areas:
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Strategy – management teams are responsible for strategy, but our team has extensive experience guiding teams in more than 40 companies over multiple decades.
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Balance sheet and funding optimisation – we have a deep understanding of capital structures;
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RMB Ventures and FirstRand network – whether its bringing the FirstRand balance sheet to bear, or an introduction in Nigeria to a potential partner, we try to leverage the full might of the FirstRand network and our portfolio companies to solve problems or facilitate growth for our partners;
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African and global expansion – utilising the FirstRand presence in over 12 countries, and RMB Ventures experience and networks we are able to provide assistance to structure and appropriate expansion strategy
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Incentive structures – we have extensive experience in designing appropriate incentive mechanisms to ensure alignment of interest with company goals;
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Talent management and succession planning – great people run great organisations, but we appreciate the arts of recruitment, training and development that are essential to continue the supply of great people
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Business Information – as data becomes a more valuable commodity, how to manage and use this proprietary information is fast becoming a necessary core competency
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M&A – our business is in acquiring and disposing of businesses. We share this experience with our portfolio companies