BPOPF plans greater local capital injections
Mbongeni Mguni | Tuesday August 19, 2025 09:09
BPOPF CEO, Moemedi Malindah, told BusinessWeek that the fund was alive to the economic challenges in the country, as well as the need to be more active in stimulating activity that will spur employment creation.
“We cannot act as though we are immune to what's happening to the economy,” he told BusinessWeek in a recent media briefing. “It’s affecting all of us and it’s important for the BPOPF to play an active role in terms of trying to change the affairs of the country. “How do we contribute to the solutions? “We don’t have an answer to that and I don’t think anyone can claim that, but we know that investments ought to be made so that employment can be created and business activity boosted.
He continued: “That’s our space; to look at trying to invest.”
With assets under management of P116 billion as at March 31, 2025, the BPOPF is comfortably the biggest fund in the country, active in most of the Botswana Stock Exchange’s counters as well as other non-listed sectors.
However, the fund’s drive to invest locally, particularly in infrastructure, has been bogged down by risk/return considerations as well as the complexity involved in structuring the transactions.
Malindah said whilst commercial agreements meant the BPOPF could not immediately disclose the deals it was eyeing in the economy, more activity would take place this year in terms of investments.
“If I tell you about the deals, I would be making non-public material public, but we will be looking at certain companies in Botswana, certain infrastructure in the country. “We are really actively looking at some companies in Botswana and once the deal is made, we will inform you,” he told BusinessWeek.
He added: “There’s a lot that we have done like helping some of our companies that are struggling because of the pressures that are in the economy, such as liquidity challenges. “There are difficulties onshore and also a difficult environment offshore.”
Media reports suggest the BPOPF is negotiating a P500 million debt injection for Letshego, a deal that is yet to be formally announced.
The CEO said with the requirement for the pension funds to repatriate more of their assets onshore, the BPOPF would more closely look at the “alternative space” outside traditional equities and bonds, for investment.
Under changes to the Retirement Funds Act, pension funds are required to reach 44% domestic investment by December 2025 and achieve full compliance of a minimum of 50% by December 2027. By May, the pension funds were 43.8%, marginally behind the target.
The CEO also defended the BPOPF’s decision to directly lend government P3 billion earlier this year, saying the deal made sense in terms of cost to the fund and returns to members.
“Since inception, the fund has been lending government money through bonds and there’s no difference. “The P3 billion is just that we were doing directly. “There are detractors who say ‘but why did you want to do it directly?’ “The difference between doing it directly and through a middleman is fees. “It means we did not pay fees that we would have paid the middleman and that’s good for our members. “Also, these are good returns that we got in a difficult market.”