Impressive Milestones of Transformation at Sea Harvest
Sea Harvest is committed to transformation to ensure broader participation in the country’s wealth creation and economic growth. The company is the largest black-owned firm operating in the South African fishing sector and is the largest employer on the West Coast of the Western Cape where as many as 3600 jobs directly or indirectly exist because of the company.
The transformation at Sea Harvest has been a tremendous success, proven by the fact that the company has moved up from a Level 4 B-BBEE contributor status just one decade ago to Level 1 with black ownership now over 90%.
As recently as 2018, the Group was noted as the most empowered company in the industry to also be listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. This has been possible because of the ongoing commitment from the company towards its goal of full transformation over a period of 20 years, as can be seen in the milestones reached during this period.
Joint ventures with black-owned SMMEs and initiation of 2nd Share Trust
Support followed in 2015 for two black-owned smaller operators to help them with the catching and processing of their fishing quota for which they had fishing rights. The company initiated a 2nd employee share trust in 2015 to give employees the ability to share in the economic wealth of the company through shareholding.
Purchase of Viking in 2018
Transformation at Sea Harvest gained a boost in 2018 when the company headed a black consortium in the purchasing of the white-owned Viking Fishing Group. This broadened black ownership and helped to establish the new black entrants with the acquisition process, including assets across three Southern African countries. These assets ranged from vessels to fishing rights, among others.
Committing resources to the development of small black-owned businesses
The company also co-founded the South African Fisheries Development Fund as a means to support various SMMEs with training, vessels, marketing, and processing of catch to promote enterprise development.
More transformation highlights at Sea Harvest include, but are not limited to:
- 1 billion in purchasing and using the services from majority black-owned companies in 2019. This included procurement of services and products from 745 small black-owned companies of which most operated in the rural communities.
- More than R220 million paid to 2000 plus employee beneficiaries from the employee share trust scheme.
- More than R30 million spent on skills development and training of employees, local communities, unemployed youth and small-scale operators in the fishing industry.
- Transformation management and control considering best practices in skills development and training have resulted in 85% of HDIs in management.
What the future holds for transformation at Sea Harvest
The company is committed to complete transformation to achieve the government NDP priorities and to further grow black participation and ownership in the South African fishing industry.