Letsema is a black-owned, values-driven investment group founded in South Africa in 1996. We build and hold businesses through long-term partnership. Through the Letsema Foundation, we invest in the ideas and leaders that a good society needs. Our founding conviction is unchanged: business is a catalyst for positive social change.
Letsema, founded in 1996, sits at the heart of a simple idea: that business and society are inseparable, and that doing one well demands helping and supporting the other.
Letsema is a Sotho word. It describes people coming together to work towards a common purpose. That idea of collective effort towards a shared vision remains the organising principle of everything we do.
We build and hold businesses for the long term, backing exceptional people and adding value as active institutional partners. We are growth-focused, patient and deliberate about the businesses we choose to build alongside.
Through the Letsema Foundation, we invest in the ideas and the leaders that a good society needs. Each expression of our work reinforces the other. Both are grounded in the same conviction that has guided us since 1996: business is a catalyst for social change.
A family where everyone looks different
Establish lasting partnerships
African with global aspirations
Building an enduring institution
Business as a catalyst for social change
Letsema's history has shaped the institution it is today. What began as an ambitious startup has become a diversified investment group with deep roots in the South African economy.
Isaac Shongwe founds Letsema. The Hollard Foundation becomes the first client, and Letsema sets up in the basement of the Hollard building on Main Street in the Johannesburg CBD.
Letsema applies its own thinking to its own balance sheet, forming early investment vehicles and partnering with the trade union CEPPWAWU to create CEPPWAWU Investments.
The investment platform matures through transactions with Aspen Pharmacare, Nampak and Transpaco. In 2003, Isaac Shongwe founds the Africa Leadership Initiative.
Letsema acquires a stake in Barloworld's logistics business and a controlling interest in the former Sasol subsidiary Cirebelle. Isaac Shongwe goes on to lead Barloworld Logistics.
The group builds its long-term industrial portfolio, acquiring a significant stake in the sawmilling and forestry business Normandien Farms and a majority stake in the industrial workwear company ServWorx.
Letsema acquires a majority stake in the logistics advisory and technology firm Transnova, and continues to deepen its investment platform and its Foundation work under one shared purpose.
Letsema Holdings divests from its consulting and advisory business to focus on the insurance and mining verticals.
We share the burden of growing South Africa. We partner with exceptional businesses and people that have an outsized impact on the economy, create jobs, make things and have the internal excellence to build scalable, growing enterprises.
Institutional capability, brought to every partnership.
What differentiates Letsema is the depth of institutional capability we bring to every partnership. We are an experienced investment team that has built and held businesses across multiple sectors for nearly thirty years. Our operating partners gain access to that experience, those networks and that track record as active, committed co-investors who only form partnerships where we can add real value.
We partner with people who share our values, in and for the long term.
Lasting partnerships with people capable of growing their businesses and the people within them.
We are growth-focused, targeting businesses with the potential to be built into a Letsema platform.
We unlock value through a distinctive buy, grow and hold model. A partner for building over time.
Disciplined, analytical validation using top-down and bottom-up assessment of every factor.
As active, experienced investors, we provide strategic and operational support to our partners.
Founded in 1990, the Marlyn Group distributes speciality mining and water-treatment chemicals, with technical, laboratory and export logistics services across Southern Africa. A leading supplier of activated carbon, sodium cyanide and caustic soda to the mining industry.
Visit website ↗A vertically integrated, 30% black-owned business operating in the sawmilling and forestry sectors. Founded in 1992 in the Eastern Cape, it has grown from a single sawmill into one of South Africa's large independently owned sawmilling groups.
Visit website ↗Founded in 1923 as Volans Master Cleaners, ServWorx is a new-generation services company spanning garment rental, uniforms and workwear, laundry, hygiene and cleaning solutions.
Visit website ↗An independent logistics advisory, technology and managed-services firm with deep experience designing, building and operating logistics control towers and innovative supply-chain solutions.
Visit website ↗An independent, black-owned short-term insurance intermediary consolidation platform established and run by Letsema Holdings.
Business and society cannot operate independently. They are interconnected, each relying on the other to succeed. The Foundation builds partnerships with established and start-up organisations, programmes and initiatives that can bring about positive social change.
Founded by Isaac Shongwe in 2003 as part of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, ALI convenes and inspires civic-minded, values-based leaders committed to building a good society.
Built on ALI's purpose, YALI develops the next generation of values-based young African leaders through seminars and self-directed high-impact leadership projects.
An independent, non-profit venture preparing diverse, talented leaders for careers in public service and elected leadership, grounded in public purpose, ethics and values.
Real, local soccer that develops the game in rural and township areas, pairing tournaments with workshops in entrepreneurship, maths, English and life skills.
Founded by Nelson Mandela in 1991, the Fund works across all nine provinces on child survival, safety, sustainable livelihoods and youth leadership.
A welfare organisation caring for the aged and needy in Alexandra township, home to the Majorie Manganye Frail-Care Centre.
A non-profit incubating development across four rural communities in the former Transkei, addressing education, health, livelihoods and basic services.
We partner with exceptional people for the long term. If that sounds like you, we would like to hear from you.
For investment partnership enquiries, reach the Letsema investments team directly.
For programme partnership and Foundation enquiries, please complete the contact form.
