Company Announcement - A firm belief that its employees are the glue that holds any business structure together and drives it towards sustainability forms the rationale behind the Zest WEG Group’s strategy to establish an empowerment company – Zest Empower Co (Pty) Ltd – which will have a 25.1 % shareholding in Zest WEG Electric, the entity responsible for all sales within the borders of South Africa.Louis Meiring, CEO of Zest WEG Group, explains that the Group’s history is characterised by fairness, trust and respect, a passion for its work, excellence in customer service and the recognition of all people and communities. The group has operated a CSI initiative and its outreach has stretched across many areas of South Africa.

The beneficiaries of the empowerment trust include all permanently employed, previously disadvantaged employees across all the South African operations of Zest WEG Group Africa. In an effort to outline the benefits that these employees will experience, the organisation launched a roadshow which was taken to all its operations in the country. The roadshow clearly explained the complexity and significance of the trust and emphasised the Group’s passion for its people and the recognition of their loyalty and contribution to its success.

“It was critical to the success of the initiative that we maintain a high degree of transparency. The concept has been well accepted by employees and has stimulated increased levels of two-way communication, a positive contributor to driving improvements within the company,” says Meiring.

Zest WEG Group’s philosophy of partnering not only with its customers but with its own people exhibits a cognisance that employees are, in fact, the most important customers in the business. This is evidenced by the fact that Zest WEG Group was previously black empowered through direct investment ownership by Medu Capital.

“Interestingly, Medu Capital, which is a private equity investor, had an investment horizon of five years but actually only exited the relationship after seven years. This move coincided with the start of official negotiations for the sale of Zest to WEG and once the negotiations were concluded we immediately began reviewing various options to ensure that we would meet the BBBEE code of practice,” Meiring points out.

Finding the most sustainable model, that would secure the interests of the business and simultaneously provide benefits for our employees, was approached in a methodical and careful manner over an 18 month period. After careful consideration we believe that the current model is not only synergistic to all stakeholder needs, but is also extremely sustainable,” says Meiring. As part of the restructuring process, Zest WEG Electric will be introducing a new non-executive board member – Jack Phalane an attorney from Fluxmans.

“The company will continue on the strong foundation created over the past 35 years and will remain dedicated to the unwavering commitment and support to our customers. This new structure, we believe, will return us to a Level 4 BBBEE contributor status,” Meiring concludes.