Consultants

Business Profile: ROBERT MICHAEL POWER

Bob Power was born in the UK and went to school there. He became a member of the Metropolitan Police Force (London), and later a gazetted officer in the Malawi Police Force, where his prime responsibilities were officer training and transformation re-structuring.

Bob is a Fellow of the Institute of Security (FIS) and is a Barrister-at-law (Grays Inn-London). He also holds an H.Dip Company Law-Wits University, and received accreditation for the 3 months Executive Development Programme (EDP), also at Wits.

Bob’s career path since relocating to South Africa has centred primarily on business and training.

He was Legal Adviser /Company Secretary to various listed companies, namely- Sappi Ltd (pulp and paper industry), Abercom Group Ltd (engineering) and Unitrans Ltd (transport). He was actively involved in acquisitions and disposal transactions (M&A) in all of those entities, both in SA and overseas (especially covering due diligence, negotiations and preparation/vetting of necessary legal documents). He sat on the boards and chaired some of the subsidiary companies associated with those companies.

He was responsible for risk management/security/insurance for all these entities.

Bob was involved in the formation of the South African Futures Exchange (SAFEX) and was on the board of SAFEX and was responsible for compliance and legal issues.

In addition Bob was also Head of Legal and Compliance for Unexcor (the major bank’s clearing house for financial markets).

He was a founder member of the South African Security Association (SASA) and  the SA Institute of Security.

Bob has operated through his own business Power Corporate Consultants since 1994 and facilitates transactions through a sister business “The Business Exchange.”

His prime concentrations at the present time are his core business of facilitating and negotiating the full mergers and acquisitions process, which in addition to broking transactions includes training, mentoring, due diligence (especially off balance sheet-forensics), negotiations, financial and legal compliance, corporate governance, BEE transactions, risk management and security awareness.

Specific emphasis for years has been to train those wishing to enter the SME market by start-up or buying a business-especially entrepreneurs and other small business owners.

Bob is the author of 2 published business books-namely-“Let the Signer Beware” and “How to buy a small business”and a further book “A comprehensive overview of starting and expanding a small business” will be published shortly.

His thesis for his H.Dip Company Law (Wits) was “Negotiating Defensive Tactics to Takeovers”

1-7-2009