Former BIHL CEO impressed with subsidiaries performance

Gaff ar Hassam’s reign at BIHL ended at the end of February this year and he will be taking up a role at Sanlam Emerging Markets responsible for the southern part of Africa, which means he will still be in touch with what will be happening at BIHL as its overseer.

OAITSE MATHALA

Botswana Insurance Holdings Limited (BIHL) Group former Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Gaffar Hassam is impressed by the performances of the Group’s subsidiaries, being Botswana Life, Botswana Insurance Fund Management (Bifm) and Legal Guard, following BIHL’s impressive financial standing for the year 2015.
The former CEO, who has since been replaced by Catherine Lesetedi-Letegele effective 1st March, 2016, made his last address of the BIHL stakeholders during the Group’s announcement of the abridged audited financial results for the year ended 31 December, 2015 last Friday. “Our subsidiaries performed very well. Bifm contributed significantly to the results we are presenting today,” he said, indicating that this was due to the investments they made.
He said Legal Guard was profitable and applauded Botswana Life for its performance as well. BIHL earned P598 million profit after tax, with operating profit increasing by 31% to P386.1 million while core earnings increased by 31% to P420 million. The Group pointed out that its subsidiaries worked tirelessly by implementing various key initiatives to ensure success and to continue to progress towards its strategy to become a broader financial services operation. “Overall it has been a tough year but we are pleased with the financial results,” said Hassam.
His reign at BIHL ended at the end of February this year and he will be taking up a role at Sanlam Emerging Markets responsible for the southern part of Africa, which means he will still be in touch with what will be happening at BIHL as its overseer. His successor, Lesetedi-Letegele, is former CEO of Botswana Life, a position that has now been inherited by Bilkiss Moorad who has served as Deputy CEO of the same for the last three months.
Lesetedi-Letegele expects 2016 to be a tough year. Therefore, they intend to up-skill their staff with the aim of improving their business. “Success in business is not about opportunities being right but about exploring ways of finding opportunities. This year at BIHL we will focus our attention to our people, we will continue to invest in improving the skills of our people. We will send some of our staff to Sanlam for training to improve our business,” she said, and assured shareholders that; “You can be certain that your investments are in good hands and we will continue up-skilling ourselves.”
“If you look at our subsidiaries, I can comfortably say that not only do they have businesses that are leading in their industries but have businesses that are successful and very passionate about what they are doing,” said the new CEO, highlighting that they are going to look at ways of improving their revenue. She noted that they are very happy that they have strong relationships with their associates “but we continue to explore ways of improving those relationships.”