- BIHL to achieve P250m in the transaction
ALFC I Investment, a company owned by Africa Lighthouse Capital, is in the process of buying Botswana Life’s stake in FSG Limited, the leading funeral services company in Botswana.
This follows a notice to shareholders earlier this month by Botswana Insurance Holdings Limited (BIHL) to the effect that one of its subsidiaries, Botswana Life Insurance Limited (BLIL), has entered into a transaction for the sale of the life insurer’s 37.62 percent shareholding in FSG Limited. In a fresh update this past week, BIHL announced ALFC I as the buyer of Botswana Life shares in Funeral Service Group.
ALFC I is one of the existing shareholders of FSG with a stake of 19.37 percent. This transaction, upon completion, will raise its shareholding to 56.99 percent. This will make ALFC I the majority shareholder of the funeral services group. Other current shareholders in FSG besides Botswana Life include Flip Coin (Pty) Ltd, Tebelelo Seretse and Vijayan Narayanan. The transaction, according to the earlier notice, was executed by way of an auction process to establish a market price and maximise value for BIHL’s shareholders.
This culminated in BIHL achieving a cash consideration of P250 million, of which P240 million will be paid in cash on closing and the balance will be paid in cash within 10 months of closing. BIHL Public Relations, Communications & Marketing Manager, Tebogo Keepetsoe, could not address The Business Weekly & Review queries regarding the transaction, saying the Group is currently in a closed period as it prepares to release its half-year financials next week.
“The BIHL Group is currently in a closed period as we prepare to release the 2022 half-year results on the 31st August 2022,” Keepetsoe said. “We therefore are unable to respond to your inquiry and refer you to the notice published on the Botswana Stock Exchange X-News dated 5th August 2022.” Among others, this publication sought to establish what motivated the sale of these shares and what the proceeds from the sale will be used for.
The Business Weekly & Review also wanted to find out how FSG has been performing in the last five years, and how that performance translated in BIHL’s overall performance. BIHL 2021 financials show that FSG performed well last year, which saw revenue growing by 49 percent compared to the prior year. This performance was mainly driven by the undertaking arm of the business due to increased mortality resulting from COVID-19. Profit before tax grew by 64 percent year-on-year.
