JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Shanduka, one of South Africa’s leading black-owned and black-managed holding companies, has halved its exposure to mining, CEO Phuti Mahanyele said on Monday.

Speaking to Mining Weekly Online in an exclusive interview, the 42-year-old head of the R8-billion company – which is chaired by founder Cyril Ramaphosa who is currently transitioning into politics – said mining now represented 35% of the Shanduka Group’s entire portfolio, down from 76% in 2010.

Infrastructure has been a growing sector for Shanduka, which has also diversified geographically in the last two years, resulting in 19% of its portfolio now being outside of South Africa, in countries including Nigeria, Ghana and Mozambique, and in East Africa.

Diversification has proved favourable against the background of the currently volatile commodities environment.

Shanduka Resources, headed by MD Cobus Loots, is in coal, platinum, gold and diamonds.

“We were concerned at being too heavy in one particular sector, and I think we now have a very good balance,” Mahanyele said of the unlisted group, which employs nearly 10 000 people in the three businesses that it controls, in coal and in food and beverages.

The group’s investments span a diverse portfolio of listed and unlisted assets in sectors including food and beverages, energy and telecommunications infrastructure, and financial services.

In South Africa, the group has more than 50% of Shanduka Coal, 70% of Coca-Cola Shanduka Beverages and 70% of McDonald’s.

“Having exposure to the food and beverages sector has been a good defence mechanism,” Mahanyele said.

Shanduka’s infrastructure portfolio is made up of wind, solar and gas and telecommunications entities.

Mahanyele, who has worked alongside Ramaphosa for nine years, said it was good that the current deputy president of the ruling African National Congress party was leaving behind a Shanduka team that understood his hard-working, hands-on and disciplined approach to business and his appetite for dealing directly with the practicalities of business.

The company funds the Shanduka Foundation, which focuses on education through the Adopt-a-School Foundation, with a team of 26 full-time employees, including civil engineers and project managers, and enterprise development through the Shanduka Black Umbrellas.

More than 170 schools are under adoption, through which some 500 000 pupils have passed in the past ten years.

Together with the Kagiso Trust, the Shanduka Foundation is currently investing a combined R200-million into education in the Free State, which the province is matching with a further R200-million for the building of education facilities and the upskilling of teachers.

Shanduka Black Umbrellas provides a three-year incubation programme to provide prospective entrepreneurs with business-building skills.