Stanbic MD Denies Panic Reaction In Motswana's Appointment

By Kabo Mokgoabone
Staff Writer | Monday August 27, 2007 00:00

 

Stanbic's CEO Dennis Kennedy told the Monitor Business that the appointment process of Leina Gabaraane as his deputy began two years ago.

'We saw Leina build Stanbic Investment Management Services (SIMS),' Kennedy said, referring to the bank's asset management division of which Gabaraane is the founding CEO.

 'We have been working on this for the past two years. We want people of substance, and Leina has come through this and delivered.'
SIMS is currently Botswana's largest unit trust with P4.3 billion worth of assets under its management.

'This is not what Kennedy cooked, but it started some time back,' the Stanbic CEO said. Kennedy said the bank saw potential in Gabaraane, who started SIMS in 2003 and grew it to its present ranking of fourth largest asset management company in Botswana. Its latest high profile account is the Botswana Public Officers Pension Fund (BPOPF).

Botswana commercial banks have come under scrutiny in political circles for 'make-believe' localisation programmes after the Bank of Baroda was caught in a lie about Batswana being in key management positions.

Analysts have been asking why banks, which have a longer presence in Botswana, were failing to localise whereas asset management companies, which are of a more recent development, handle money by the billion under the management of true blue Batswana.
Of all Botswana's six commercial banks - Barclays Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Stanbic Bank, First National Bank, Bank of Baroda and Bank Gaborone - only Barclays has a Motswana Managing Director.

Barclays and Standard set up in Botswana before independence in 1966.