Super Group has a long record of embracing empowerment in various forms. And that partly explains why the company is the most empowered listed transport and logistics provider in the 2009 Top Empowerment Companies (TEC) survey. This year, the company's overall empowerment score is 65,09%.
Chief operations officer Adam Craker says he was attracted to Super Group, in part, by the founding ethos - embodied by the group's founder and CEO Larry Lipschitz, who established the business in 1986 by purchasing Super Rent, a trucking business. The Super Rent division mainly had black drivers, while management was predominantly, or even exclusively, white at some point. He looked within the Super Rent division to groom leadership. The division is now headed by a long-serving employee Billy Sukdeo.
The group's biggest source of anxiety has been the dilution of the empowerment shareholding by the Peu Group. From its original holding of 25,1% the group had to, in 2007, sell a part of its stake to repay a loan from Deutsche Bank. That reduced its holding to 16,1%. According to Craker, the group has now further reduced its holding to 3,5%.
The empowerment codes of good practice apply what is known as a continuous recognition principle, allowing companies that have had empowerment partners to continue claiming credit even after the empowerment partner has sold its shareholding. Craker notes that though this is less than ideal, it will help prevent a scenario where the firm has multiple rounds of empowerment selling. "We have to make ourselves attractive to all investors and shareholders, not just black ones."
The Super Group's ownership score is 17,74%. Its nearest rival in the transport sector, Imperial, scored 15,93% while the next three entrants in the Top Five have an ownership score ranging from 2 to 7 points.
The company has established a development hub, which provides internal training and support, but also provides training to external clients. The group has a skills development score of 6,87%.
According to Craker, the group has a BEE spend of 29%, while its preferential procurement score of 8,28% is complemented by an enterprise development score of 15%. It used one of its largest procurement areas - sourcing trucks - to advance early empowerment. It launched the owner driver scheme, where truck drivers own their trucks and receive guaranteed work from the group. According to Craker, the company now spends R180m/year on the programme, which has 120 participants.
Its flagship in enterprise development is Stop Wash, a car wash service found mostly in shopping malls. The service was established with R3m seed funding and it employs about 2 000 people.
Craker says an area of procurement the group would like to improve on is vehicle and fuel purchasing. It has about 160 000 vehicles and consumes between R30m and R40m worth of fuel a month. An increasing proportion of these items would need to come from empowered suppliers. Thus, its empowerment credentials notwithstanding, the group is still not satisfied.
