CEO Today Africa Awards

SOUTH AFRICA 75 www.ceotodaymagazine.com CEO Today Africa Awards 2017 www.rebosis.co.za ABOUT SISA NGEBULANA Sisa holds a Bachelors Degree in Law from the University of Fort Hare, a LLB post Degree from Natal University, an LLM Master’s Degree from RAU and is an admitted attorney of the High Court of South Africa. Sisa, also a qualified Estate Agent, has been in the property market since 1991. He began his property career as an Estate Agent in Scottsville, Natal some 20 years ago, selling middle income homes. He thereafter left for the Cape where he formed and setup a commercial and industrial property agency in Cape Town CBD. This was the first black agency (called ‘SWAV’) in Cape Town (if not in South Africa at the time). This agency specialized in all commercial property matters, ranging from leasing, general property consulting, property management, valuations etc. It was during this time that Sisa also did his legal articles with Jan S de Villiers Attorneys in Cape Town, where he specialised in commercial litigation matters, and was admitted as an attorney of the High Court. Sisa worked for Eskom for some 7 years, after having moved to Johannesburg, as senior to chief legal adviser, then corporate consultant. During this time he specialised in property, financial and engineering legal disciplines. He thereafter further ironed his financial skills as a trader in money markets, foreign exchange and mostly capital markets desks. He headed up project and structured finance responsible for funding strategies for Eskom Treasury. During this time he successfully and single-handedly structured very unique products that included US cross border lease transactions, leveraged preference share offshore transactions, zero coupon euro-rand bonds, etc to the value of some $5 billion. Some 13 years ago, Sisa formed and set up a construction company, Afcon, which specialised in construction and development of upmarket homes. This business switched from pure construction to development, a factor that was due to the high interest rates in 1998. This business has been consolidated into the Billion Group. The Billion Group, through Sisa’s guidance and leadership ventured and set up successful businesses in coal mining, pressed concrete products, gold mine dumps reclamations, etc in late 90’s to early 2000. In 2003 Sisa sold off all non-core property businesses and focused his business interests within the company into property as the sole business focus, intent on building a formidable property company. The Group then expanded into commercial and retail properties. Sisa single handedly developed Mdantsane City, a regional mall in Mdantsane (SA second largest township after Soweto) and HemingwaysMall (amaster strokedevelopment of a super-regional mall amid serious competitors who proposed same on different sites and the resulting formation of a construction company by Sisa to build the mall pursuant world cup commitments of large contractors unable to commit to the project). These malls were developed on time, created 9000 temporary jobs in the most impoverished area of SA, with 1500 and 2500 permanent jobs respectively and an annual contribution to the fiscus in taxes of some R280m annually. Sisa, through his entrepreneurial drive, is credited to have created the first black multibillion property company in SA, which was created from scratch from vacant land parcels and a vision into great built properties that are catalysts to further development in their precincts. He has since conceived and developed successful retail assets such as Forest Hill City in Centurion Gauteng, Baywest Mall in Port Elizabeth and BT Ngebs City shopping centre in Mthatha. Forest Hill City is a R7 billion mixed-development that combines office, retail and residential space. Baywest Mall, the R 2.5 billion, 90 000m2 super-regional mall and state-of-the-art modern centre was opened by Billion Group in 2015. Later that same year Billion Group opened the 60 000m2, R1.6 billion BT Ngebs City shopping centre in Mthatha, named after Sisa’s grandfather (BT Ngebulana). He is about to break ground on about 3 other malls in South Africa and boasts a strong history of delivering creative, highly functional developments on time, surpassing expectations. InDecember 2010, Sisaconsolidated theexisting incomeproducing assets in malls and commercial buildings, into a company named “Sisa is now the non-executive Deputy Chairman of Rebosis, effective from 1 October 2017, having retired as CEO as at 30 September 2017”