Development Finance Company Case Study: Norsad Finance Limited

1. INTRODUCTION

Norsad Finance Limited is a development finance company which has been in existence since 1990. At its inception the business was established a multilateral entity owned by Governments. Its primary role was to provide foreign currency to SADC member states and to facilitate trade between them and the Nordic countries during the apartheid era. This has since changed and since 2012 the business has been undergoing transformation into a commercially driven development finance company. Following the 2012 transition, a strategic decision was made by the board to diversify the company’s product portfolio. In addition to the debt instruments, Norsad Finance has diversified its product offering to include mezzanine finance (Quasi equity and quasi-debt instruments) and to also actively offer clients equity.

The diversification of the product portfolio has now opened up the possibility of offering financial assistance to new customers and enables Norsad the flexibility to structure financing for new instruments. Since the operations are very small I have carried out a review of the Investment operations to determine whether the current strategy is relevant and to also identify areas of improvement.

The organisation has a small multi-cultural team

The reason for this is that given the nature of the market which we operate in, competition is very high therefore high efficiency levels are necessary. We have a strong focus towards delivery and achievement of set goals and targets. There is a high expectation on staff to apply themselves towards achievement of these goals. However, possibly owing to personal styles, the leadership is hierarchical. This has resulted in the company having in place very good policies and procedures. However implementation of these policies and achievement of goals remains a challenge because the leader is too far ahead of the