Directors at the funeral service provider recently told stakeholders that it wants to grow its top and bottom lines, through the amassing of regional new business in an attempt to grow shareholder value. FSG CEO, Fergus Ferguson, said the company is seeing great opportunity to triple the value of its business by tapping into untapped markets in the region. “Our aim is to triple the value of our business in the next five years and we are going to do so through increasing our footprint in Zambia. We think there is ample opportunity there,” he said when addressing an investor meeting in Gaborone. FSG is a giant in the funeral service in the Southern African region with operations in Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Its key markets are Botswana and Zambia.
The company manufactures and sells coffins and caskets, provides funeral-related services and also offers funeral insurance in partnership with Botswana Life, a wholly owned Botswana Insurance Holdings Limited entity. The group’s main shareholder is a local private equity firm, Africa Lighthouse Capital (ALC), which is giving FSG a push to grow the value of its business. ALC bid and acquired 37.62% of shares in FSG at P250 million, making it by then the biggest deal to be made by a PE fund in Botswana, acquiring the shares from Botswana Life Insurance Holdings. In October 2022, the Competition Authority gave thumbs up to the proposed deal and followed on the heels by Zambia. The move saw ALC shares in the company surging to 57.62% making it the majority shareholder. The firm acquired 20% of the company in 2020 from Alan Gray, which is a pension fund management outfit. Ferguson further revealed that the success they want to achieve in Zambia will be driven by a knowledge transfer to the Zambian market from lessons learnt from the Botswana market. He further told the stakeholders that the business will also grow its insurance division more, which is the main revenue driver of the business.
