Senye unveils his master plan

| Friday September 3, 2010 00:00

Recently, BIHL announced that Senye, one of Botswana's prominent young executives, had been reassigned to develop the diversified giant's property division, ending his seven-year tenure as Bifm CEO.

On the surface, the re-assignment appeared pedestrian, but in an exclusive interview with BusinessWeek on Wednesday, Senye revealed that the project was infact his brainchild and that he would be pioneering the multi-million property holdings entity as an entrepreneur with BIHL the possible chief financiers of the project.Senye, who has been with Bifm for the past seven years after leaving BDC in 2003, said he ended up in asset management at Bifm by accident because his heart had always been in property management even when he was first recruited by the country's largest asset management company.

Although he would not reveal much about his grand plan, Senye said the ambition was to set up a property development and management company along an entrepreneurial model, rewarding both management for their efforts and Bifm for their capital and land.'Having worked for Bifm and delivered incredible results for them in property development and management, I decided it was time to quit employment and go into entrepreneurship,' he said.

During Senye's tenure, Bifm made its mark in the property sector, becoming involved in Game City, Fairground Office Park, Gaborone Private Hospital and the new Gaborone CBD. Bifm also became the first company to be involved in Public Private Partnerships) (PPPs).'When I fist came up with this idea, I approached the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and managed to secure US$20 million to set up a fund plus another US$5 million from my own investors,' he said. 'Unfortunately, the other parties that were supposed to come on board with another US$15 million developed cold feet at the last moment and the IFC offer ended up lapsing.'

Senye then approached the board of BIHL with his grand plan, which would entail using his experience in property development and management to set up a vehicle that would be co-owned by Bifm and management. Although much work is still to be done, Senye said he should know in the next two weeks whether his plan of setting up the property development company in which he would be co-owner would materialise.

Senye, who is still with Bifm to assist his successor Tiny Kgatlwane settle in, said he opted not to apply for the position of BIHL CEO so that he could concentrate on setting up the property development and management company.'My ambition is that the property company would be partly owned by Bifm and partly by management and its core business would be to build and manage offices here and in Zambia,' he said.'The vision is to create the company which we will use as a vehicle to develop properties as we have been doing with Bifm. As we go along, we will develop a track record and use the development fees and profits to set up a regional property fund where we can then invite third party investors to come in, leveraging on our track record.

'However, due to the complexity of the proposal, the Bifm board has asked for assistance on the transaction from Sanlam's corporate finance and legal people who are the experts in structured finance, and we expect a decision in the next two weeks.'

Under the deal, Senye will use Bifm's vast land and capital resources to develop and manage properties in Botswana and Zambia, the proceeds of which will be shared between management and Bifm in proportion to their shareholding in the property company.Said Senye about what he would do if his proposal was turned down:' That would be disappointing.

After I have delivered so much for the company, it would be unfair if the plan was rejected.'  Among Senye's notable achievements when he was with BDC was his involvement in the development of the design and provision of infrastructure services to the Fairgrounds Office Park, one of Gaborone's major office venues accommodating banks, insurance, accounting, auditing and financial entities.

He was also involved in the planning stages of other major projects, among them Riverwalk Shopping Mall and Gaborone International Convention Centre (GICC).