Physical asset management specialist PRAGMA Africa is positioned for rapid expansion into the government and municipal market with the announcement of a BEE deal with Nokusa Investments, a black-owned investment company with interests in the professional services and the ICT industries.
The deal sees Nokusa Investments acquiring an initial 30% stake in PRAGMA Africa, with the shareholding set to increase to a majority stake over the next three years. Mdu Nene, former CEO of Nokusa Investments, took over as MD of PRAGMA Africa on 1 October. The deal signals the most radical BEE initiative that the local physical asset management industry has yet seen.
Established in 1990, PRAGMA Africa provides services and software that improves the performance of physical assets at optimum lifecycle cost. The company forms part of the PRAGMA Holdings group that also includes software development company PRAGMA Products.
PRAGMA Holdings has enjoyed significant success in Europe, with an office established in Ireland in 2002. PRAGMA Products also has numerous value-added resellers throughout Europe, Canada, Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
"The deal with Nokusa follows on a five-year search for the best possible BEE partner," says Adriaan Scheeres, CEO of PRAGMA Holdings.
"Along the way we considered numerous alternatives, but we believe that in Nokusa we have found the partner that can elevate our African business to a new level."
Nokusa Investments is a black-owned management company, born out of Nokusa Consulting, a consultancy focusing on strategy, enterprise and supply chain management, organisational performance, organisation and people, and programme management. Nokusa Consulting was founded in 1999 by five black professionals with considerable experience in the management consulting and IT industries, led by Moses Hadebe, the current CEO. Nokusa means "dawn" in Xhosa and Zulu. The company strives to contribute in a tangible way to the dawning of a new economic season in the country through skills transfer and capacity building, particularly in the public sector.
"In our dealings with both the public and private sectors, we have grown to understand the immense importance of the physical asset base in the achievement of organisational objectives," says Hadebe.
"We saw in PRAGMA an opportunity to complement our management expertise with pragmatic services that deliver on improved asset performance, which ultimately leads to enhanced service delivery."
PRAGMA Africa`s services cover a wide range of asset-intensive industries. The company has historically focused on manufacturing and mining, but had in recent years identified infrastructure assets as a major growth opportunity.
"There is an undeniable need for a structured approach towards the maintenance of our country`s infrastructure assets. In many instances asset neglect, misuse and poor planning have caused severe damage. This has to be reversed as the failure of infrastructure assets impacts directly on the nation`s economy. PRAGMA Africa`s future vision contributes to the competitiveness of South African industry through the establishment of technical excellence in asset management," says Nene.
PRAGMA Africa`s services include asset management outsourcing, asset identification and verification, consulting and training. The outsourced services consist of the BURO service, an outsourced asset data management solution aimed at small to medium-sized manufacturers, and the Asset Care Centre, aimed at large asset owners. The company also acts as a value-added reseller for ON KEY, the enterprise asset management software suite developed by PRAGMA Products.
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