Paratus Telecom, the largest privately owned pan-African telecoms operator, has now also appointed Stefan de Bruin as its chief financial officer for the Group to help grow the business across the African continent.
De Bruin is responsible for the overall financial affairs of the Group that is already represented in Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, South Africa and Angola. He will inter alia focus on the financial evaluation of new telecom infrastructure projects in Africa and the formulation of the funding methodology for these projects.
Earlier in his career, De Bruin was a senior manager for tax and legal services at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Financial Director at Siemens Namibia.
He is currently a non-executive board member of the Old Mutual Orion Namibia Pension and Provident Fund and was former non-executive director of the Namibian Stock Exchange, member of the Remuneration and Nominations Committee and chairman of the Audit Committee.
More recently, De Bruin was with Old Mutual Investment Group Property Investments (Proprietary) Limited (OMIGPI) and served as a representative director of Oryx Properties Limited as well as Oryx Management Services, a subsidiary of OMIGPI.
He resigned from OMIGPI and was appointed by Oryx Properties Limited as an executive in the role of CFO and later as CEO. During his five-year tenure as CEO of Oryx Properties Limited, De Bruin grew the property portfolio from N$900 million to N$2,3-billion (255%), mainly through new acquisitions and developments.
During the same period, the linked unit price increased by 220% and investors enjoyed an average total return of 25% per annum.
De Bruin says he is excited to be part of this dynamic group of people at Paratus, which has a solid track record in the ICT sector. “There is a significant demand for information and communication technology in Africa and therefore I believe that Paratus Telecom’s track record in this sector together with its current exposure in Africa provides a solid foundation for its Africa strategy.”