27 September 2002
	SA'S BEST ENTREPRENEURS Brimstone Investment Corp LOTS OF SMALL FISH FILL THE NET By Andrew McNulty

When Brimstone Investment Corp was formed on the Cape Flats in 1995, the empowerment movement was in its early stages. It was an intoxicating time which held out great promise, but the pioneering entrepreneurs of that period also encountered much scepticism. Bank finance was often difficult or even impossible to obtain. The aspiring new business leaders had to show unusual levels of resourcefulness and resilience. Brimstone founder and CE Fred Robertson is a former teacher and insurance broker. By the early 1990s, he had a vision of building an investment company with interests in industrial activities and financial services. Instead of being deterred by the difficulty of raising finance, he turned to the community. Thousands of small investors helped get the company off the ground by buying shares at 125c each. From these beginnings, Brimstone built a diverse portfolio of listed and unlisted assets. Among the first was a stake in Ocean Fishing, in an industry where empowerment and community support had grown in importance. Other investments included Afribrand, LA Retail, Nando's, House of Monatic, African Harvest and Sea Harvest, then the other major listed fishing company. The entrepreneurial challenge, Robertson says, was to make effective use of the resources available to him. The dictum he followed was to ensure the business continued to add value and create something that would be profitable and empowering and have a social impact. He also retained a strong and supportive network, including Brimstone chairman Jakes Gerwel . Growth of the business has been both helped and hindered by swings in financial markets. Brimstone was listed in July 1999 and for a while gained greatly from the boom in new listings and small-cap stocks. Valuations of many of its investments plunged when small companies fell out of favour later. Though it still holds many of its earlier investments, it has focused more sharply in new directions, notably in financial services. It is developing Lion of Africa, a short-term insurance company, and is a lead empowerment partner in Nedcor's Peoples Bank.