Sasfin takes on advisory role

2/3/2012 12:40:01 PM

AltX may have lost a lot of its glamour but that does not mean there aren’t opportunities for businesses that offer services to companies listed on the junior exchange. Sasfin Capital, a division of Sasfin Bank, has announced it has signed up to be the designated adviser to several AltX listings. IFA Hotels & Resorts, Curro, Top Fix, Ideco and O-line Holdings were all clients of QuestCo Sponsors but moved to Sasfin after QuestCo decided it would no longer offer the service. The service is not a new one for Sasfin, and corporate finance head Panico Theocharides says there is little difference between the service provided by a designated adviser and the role it plays as sponsor for companies listed on the JSE’s main board. Both take a company through a listing process and act as corporate adviser. Theocharides acknowledges a designated adviser’s job is more demanding — to attend all board meetings and sit in on the audit committee — but says Sasfin has the resources and the experience to do the job. Though Theocharides is happy to be the designated adviser to these companies, he says it should not be seen as a strategic move by Sasfin to become an adviser to AltX-listed companies. When presented with an opportunity, the group will judge companies on whether it can offer them the service they need, rather than on whether they are listed on the main board or the junior exchange. Serving as designated adviser comes with some risk. Many have run into trouble when the companies they were advising started to flounder. Theocharides says some advisers have tended to forget about the companies they were advising as they got caught up in the next one they were listing. Not Sasfin, he says. “We don’t run away. We are not scared to get involved.”

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