After a 12 month campaign, founder and CEO of ProfitShare Partners Andrew Maren is has announced that the winner of the R1-million cash prize in the Get South Africa Working (#GSAW) campaign is IT firm, Rifumo Holdings, led by owner Thompson Mpenyane.
Says Maren: “Get South Africa Working was an exciting initiative aimed at helping small businesses grow by providing R100-million in capital to those that couldn’t access funding from traditional sources like banks. A campaign proudly created by ProfitShare Partners, powered by Hot 91.9FM and in partnership with SME super-app getlion, we believe we achieved what we set out to, and more.”
Rifumo Holdings has been in operation for a few years and was growing well until Covid struck. “As they couldn’t enter most of their client’s workspaces, businesses suffered and a number of staff members had to leave, and the company had great difficulty in ensuring that the rest were paid,” he says.
However, through the combination of Rifumo Holdings’ resilience under pressure and ProfitShare Partners support, the company weathered the storm and has now landed a number of new contracts.
“ProfitShare Partners helped Rifumo Holdings save 18 jobs they had and – on top of that – hire another nine new staff members, taking the count up to 27 people, with another 14 new jobs pending,” says Maren, noting this was done during one of the more difficult periods in global business history.
Counting up the successes of the campaign, Profitshare Partners says it has paid out R116-million to its SME clients. It also created a minimum of 300 new jobs, sustained a minimum of 500 existing jobs, and assisted 61 companies to complete 104 transactions.
Maren adds: “We have helped these companies increase their turnover by approximately R200-million just from our deals alone.
“We believe that it is initiatives likes #GSAW that are required for full economic inclusion in South Africa. We hope to see more companies like Rifumo Holdings seeking opportunities and from PSP and others who are working to strengthen the backbone of the South African economy by supporting SMEs.”