Property Reporter

SOUTH African companies with diversified business interests who think they need comply with only the provisions of the empowerment charter in their main area of focus may have to think again.

They also have to comply with the transformation charters of the various sectors they trade in outside of their own, raising the likelihood of a single group being forced to meet the empowerment targets of more than three sector charters.

Public works department deputy director-general Lydia Bici yesterday told a breakfast meeting in Johannesburg, hosted by the South African Institute of Black Property Practitioners, that a property charter would apply even to those companies that were participating in other charters.

The large banks and insurance companies the big players in the financial services sector also have substantial property interests in the form of stakes in listed property funds or who own properties such as shopping centres.

Yesterday those heavyweights called for the rationalisation of empowerment charters, saying there were real fears the property charter would duplicate the financial services charter or others, and make compliance an onerous task.

Old Mutual SA deputy MD Peter Moyo said the most important thing was to align the various charters.

Moyo said that once the property charter was established Old Mutual would look at what the document had in common with the financial services charter before it sought to comply with the requirements.

Old Mutual, for example, is involved in banking and insurance, as well as in property and health care.

"It is important that government departments speak to each other and streamline (their respective) charters," Moyo said.

Cas Coovadia , senior GM for the Banking Council of SA, said if a bank had a subsidiary or some interest in a company trading on the property market, he would assume that the company would be subject to the property charter.

But Coovadia said that when it came to the business of banking, banks would not be subject to anything other than the financial services charter.

Bici said her department was talking to the trade and industry department to see how they could align the property charter to various other sector charters.

Sep 29 2004 07:51:21:000AM Nick Wilson Business Day 1st Edition