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South African financial service provider From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
FirstRand Limited, also referred to as FirstRand Group, is the holding company of FirstRand Bank, and is a financial services provider in South Africa. It is one of the financial services providers licensed by the Reserve Bank of South Africa, the national banking regulator.[2]
| |
| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| JSE: FSR | |
| Industry | Banking and finance |
| Founded | 1838 (Founded as the Eastern triocrees Province Bank, now known as the First National Bank) 1998 (Establishment of the group) |
| Headquarters | Johannesburg, South Africa |
Key people | Johan Burger (Chairman) Mary Vilakazi (Group CEO) |
| Products | Lending, transactional services, investments, insurance, asset management |
 Aftertax:US$1.8 billion (ZAR:24.5 billion) (2017) | |
| Total assets | US$93 billion (ZAR:1217.7 billion) (2017)[1] |
Number of employees | 44,916 (2017) |
| Website | www |
Listed on the JSE and the Namibian Stock Exchange,[3] FirstRand Limited is one of the largest financial institutions in South Africa, and provides banking, insurance and investment products and services to retail, commercial, corporate and public sector customers. In addition to South Africa, the group operates in eight key African countries, namely, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia,[4] Mozambique, Tanzania, Ghana and Nigeria.[5] FirstRand Bank has branches in London, Guernsey and India.[6]
FirstRand executes its strategy through a portfolio of leading financial services franchises; Rand Merchant Bank (RMB), the corporate and investment bank; First National Bank (FNB), the retail and commercial bank; WesBank, an instalment finance provider; and Ashburton Investments, the group's asset management business.
The group has its headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa. FirstRand is one of the five largest banking groups in South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.[7]
The FirstRand group's history traces back to the 1970s as an investment bank. The group as currently was established on 1 April 1998, through a merger of the financial services interests of Anglo American Corporation of South Africa Limited (now Anglo American plc) and RMB Holdings (RMBH) in order to achieve the objective of a unified financial services grouping.
These financial services interests were First National Bank Holdings, Momentum Life Assurers Limited ("Momentum" now part of MMI Holdings) and the Southern Life Association Limited ("Southern Life") all of which were listed on the JSE.[8] FNB and Southern Life were constituted as wholly owned subsidiaries of Momentum which was the vehicle to affect the merger. Momentum changed its name to FirstRand Limited and was listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on 25 May 1998 with Anglo American and RMB Holdings holding 20.43% and 25.03% of the authorised capital of FirstRand respectively.[9] Anglo American has since shed its entire shareholding.[10]
Post-merger events saw the merging of Rand Merchant Bank and FNB to form FirstRand Bank Limited, with the two units remaining to trade as divisions of FirstRand Bank Limited and the transfer of Momentum's insurance business into that of Southern Life, to form FirstRand Insurance Limited.[9]
FirstRand is listed as a "locally controlled bank" by the South African Reserve Bank, the national banking regulator.[11] The group has subsidiaries in South Africa and in the countries of Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, Lesotho, Tanzania, Ghana, Zambia, Nigeria and the UK.[12]
In November 2012, the Central Bank of Nigeria issued the first merchant banking licences in more than a decade to RMB Nigeria and another local firm.[13]
FirstRand Group holds its investments through five main subsidiaries. These subsidiaries and their subsidiaries are members of the FirstRand Group and include, but are not limited to, the following:[14]
FirstRand is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and Namibian Stock Exchange. Its major shareholders include:[19]
| Rank | Name of Owner | Percentage Ownership |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | RMB Holdings1 | 34.1 |
| 2 | Remgro2 | 3.9 |
| 3 | FirstRand's BEE partners | 5.2 |
| 4 | Institutional and Private Investors on the JSE Limited | 56.8 |
| Total | 100.00 |
1→ RMB Holdings large shareholders include Directors and management of RMBH with 10.4%, Remgro with 28.2% shareholding in RMBH and Royal Bafokeng Holdings with a 15% stake in RMBH.
2→ Based on its direct and indirect shareholding in FirstRand, Remgro's effective control of the group is 13.36%
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