printer friendly version

Back to the future: new owners, new drive, new vision

Norbain South Africa has announced it is under new management, well, new ownership. Scarcely two weeks have passed since Norbain UK announced it had been acquired by Newbury Investments UK and was looking to sell the company’s branches in South Africa, Portugal and Netherlands, and the local concern has been bought by its current management.

The management buyout (MBO) was confirmed last week. Unlike the usual corporate manoeuvring that take weeks or months, effective immediately, Norbain SA is now owned by Jan De Lange, the MD, Lukas Rautenbach, the FD and Les Oates, a director.

Lukas Rautenbach, Jan De Lange, and Les Oates

De Lange told Hi-Tech Security Solutions that the transition has been seamless and that no staff left, despite a high demand for Norbains technical employees. Moreover, none of the staff have been retrenched. On a positive note for Norbain customers, it will continue to supply all the products it currently does. Since Norbain SA has always signed direct contracts with its suppliers, all distribution agreements are still in force, with Oates noting that not one vendor has withdrawn their products from the Norbain SA catalogue.

“It’s business as usual, but now we are able to forge our own path,” notes De Lange. “Whereas we had to operate within the rules of our parent company in the past, we now have the flexibility to run the company focused on meeting the needs of the South African market.”

This will include local manufacturing opportunities for in-house brands in the future, as well as the opportunity to improve the company’s BEE status as a result of the company’s freedom to bring on empowered partners. “We have a host of ideas we’ll be implementing in due course,” says De Lange. “Watch this space. We have some exciting plans and the market can take note that we’re here to stay.”

General consensus in the market is positive, supporting the change. Michael Gwozdek, MD of Heitel, says, “HeiTel has several great memories of the longstanding and continuing relationship with Norbain South Africa. Our partnership is based on many years of collaboration, full confidence in each other and our joint focus of activities to develop and marketing tailor-made solutions to meet the expectations and the needs of our mutual customers in South Africa.

“We highly believe in the strength and enthusiasm of the newly formed management team of Norbain South Africa, their independence from global management and the team spirit of Norbain’s employees. The changes are optimal conditions for a reciprocal growth of our business in South Africa.”

Although not yet confirmed, chances are we’ll see the company ditch the Norbain brand and revert to the Reditron brand. Reditron was the name of the original South African security distributor bought by Norbain back in 1996.

The MBO has left the local company with a very healthy balance sheet, says Rautenbach, putting it in a strong position to not only deliver the service and products the security market requires, but to embark on a number of improvements to its local operations.

Starting out, De Lange is focused on improving the company’s service levels to heights unseen in the local market. Some of the improvements will be a revamped repair centre in the Johannesburg office as well as a central contact centre. In future, customers will have a single number to call for whatever they require, no matter where in the country they are located.

The company’s branch offices will continue their operations as they are, except with a renewed focus on customer service. And while the short-term focus on the company will be on South Africa, the future will see Norbain spreading its wings into Africa. The first forays will be into the neighbouring countries in the medium term, and then further north in the long term.

“Our greatest strength going forward is our people,” adds Oates. “You can have the best products in the market, but if you don’t have great people on board you’re in trouble. The fact that not one member of staff has left says a lot about their commitment to the company and our customers.”

“We’ve moved the bureaucracy out of the way, we’re motivated and we’re piloting our own ship now. The market can expect great things from this company going forward,” concludes De Lange.

Share this article:

Further reading: