Day 27: Investec Conference
Early start as we are picked up at the hotel and taken to the Investec offices in Cape Town for a solid 10 hours of conference presentations. The material includes talks on portfolio management by Investec staff and clients from around the world, including Ng Kok Song who runs the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, who is also highly active in Australia.
Africa has over 900 million people, not quite as many as India or China, but an emerging market which one day may be considered in the same way as the current BRIC economies. Much of the conference is different to a similar Australian discussion on investments, as the African story includes countries like Botswana, Namibia and Zambia that few Australians could locate on a map, never mind invest in. But they are functioning democracies with large mineral reserves, often with Australian mining companies active there. Even a country like Ethiopia which most Australians would consider a basket case has strong growth rates and a growing foreign presence, while Nigeria has 150 million people.
There is much discussion on emerging markets and changing demographics, and how the biggest market for products from companies like Louis Vuitton and BMW is now China.
We also hear from an expert on evolution and palaeontology that all the significant elements of human progress first happened in Africa, such as standing upright, use of shelter and tools, discovery of fire, herding of animals, living together in communities, development of the human brain. Parts of this talk were surprisingly similar to sections of the speech I made at Jenna's wedding in February: how we are all descended from the same African tribe, and therefore were all related at some point in our history before we went out and populated the world.
The lunch talk is given by Francois Pienaar, Captain of the Springboks in the winning World Cup team of 1995. He explained Matt Damon's reluctance to play him in Invictus due to their difference in size, and he also summarised his view on the strengths and shortcomings of the movie. He didn't like the way the team was portrayed as having little hope of winning prior to the World Cup, when in fact they had a highly competitive team - but he accepted this is typical Hollywood. But the way Mandela tried to use the game as a symbolic way to unite the nation was accurate.
In the evening, the dinner speaker is FW de Klerk, former President and the person who negotiated the end of apartheid with Mandela, and shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. This reconciliation was an extremely brave act on his part at the time, and went against most of what his party and supporters wanted. And even de Klerk admitted that it could have gone wrong and led to civil war. While he was quite humble about his role, he was obviously proud that 20 years later, the country could work together to build the airports, roads, security and stadiums to manage a World Cup. But he was not blind to the negatives, including 40% unemployment among blacks, 15 million on welfare, poor education opportunities for many and high crime rates. His most significant warning was that these problems must not lead to gains by the far right or far left who will exploit the shortcomings for political gain.
An interesting day with fresh perspectives for me on Africa. South Africans are extremely introspective and self critical, and worry that the world still looks at them in a highly critical way. There is a major chip on the South African shoulder that you don't see in Australia, that comes not from its colonial origins, but more likely from the vestiges of the apartheid era. They believe the world has not forgiven them for their treatment of blacks, and they are hung up on the external view and lack of recognition of progress in tough circumstances.
Which is why the Football World Cup is so important to them. It not only gives South Africans a chance to be proud of their nation and for all members of the Rainbow Nation to share that pride. More important, it allows them to hold their heads high to the external world, to show the world that South Africans can move on together despite whatever happened in the past. And this new-found self-confidence is likely to be the most lasting legacy of 2010.
Africa has over 900 million people, not quite as many as India or China, but an emerging market which one day may be considered in the same way as the current BRIC economies. Much of the conference is different to a similar Australian discussion on investments, as the African story includes countries like Botswana, Namibia and Zambia that few Australians could locate on a map, never mind invest in. But they are functioning democracies with large mineral reserves, often with Australian mining companies active there. Even a country like Ethiopia which most Australians would consider a basket case has strong growth rates and a growing foreign presence, while Nigeria has 150 million people.
There is much discussion on emerging markets and changing demographics, and how the biggest market for products from companies like Louis Vuitton and BMW is now China.
We also hear from an expert on evolution and palaeontology that all the significant elements of human progress first happened in Africa, such as standing upright, use of shelter and tools, discovery of fire, herding of animals, living together in communities, development of the human brain. Parts of this talk were surprisingly similar to sections of the speech I made at Jenna's wedding in February: how we are all descended from the same African tribe, and therefore were all related at some point in our history before we went out and populated the world.
The lunch talk is given by Francois Pienaar, Captain of the Springboks in the winning World Cup team of 1995. He explained Matt Damon's reluctance to play him in Invictus due to their difference in size, and he also summarised his view on the strengths and shortcomings of the movie. He didn't like the way the team was portrayed as having little hope of winning prior to the World Cup, when in fact they had a highly competitive team - but he accepted this is typical Hollywood. But the way Mandela tried to use the game as a symbolic way to unite the nation was accurate.
In the evening, the dinner speaker is FW de Klerk, former President and the person who negotiated the end of apartheid with Mandela, and shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. This reconciliation was an extremely brave act on his part at the time, and went against most of what his party and supporters wanted. And even de Klerk admitted that it could have gone wrong and led to civil war. While he was quite humble about his role, he was obviously proud that 20 years later, the country could work together to build the airports, roads, security and stadiums to manage a World Cup. But he was not blind to the negatives, including 40% unemployment among blacks, 15 million on welfare, poor education opportunities for many and high crime rates. His most significant warning was that these problems must not lead to gains by the far right or far left who will exploit the shortcomings for political gain.
An interesting day with fresh perspectives for me on Africa. South Africans are extremely introspective and self critical, and worry that the world still looks at them in a highly critical way. There is a major chip on the South African shoulder that you don't see in Australia, that comes not from its colonial origins, but more likely from the vestiges of the apartheid era. They believe the world has not forgiven them for their treatment of blacks, and they are hung up on the external view and lack of recognition of progress in tough circumstances.
Which is why the Football World Cup is so important to them. It not only gives South Africans a chance to be proud of their nation and for all members of the Rainbow Nation to share that pride. More important, it allows them to hold their heads high to the external world, to show the world that South Africans can move on together despite whatever happened in the past. And this new-found self-confidence is likely to be the most lasting legacy of 2010.
posted by Graham Hand | 2:09 PM
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