Steel Construction Vol 40 No 4 - Metal Cladding and Light Steel Frame | Page 24

INDUSTRY NEWS: in brief

Industry news in brief
MSA Africa fall arrest business
set to soar following global
acquisition
MSA Africa’s potential for growth in local
market share in 2016 is considerable,
following the late-2015 acquisition of
UK-based Latchways by the MSA Group.
Latchways is a specialist in the design and
manufacture of horizontal lifelines and
vertical fall arrest systems that are used
in the utilities, telecoms, construction and
aircraft market segments.
Latchways employs around 250 people
globally and had 2015 revenues of
approximately US$50-million. The
transaction is valued at around US$190million, and significantly broadens the
global MSA Group’s existing line of fall
protection products, while strengthening
the company’s position in the global fall
protection market, which is estimated to be
up to US$2-billion globally.
MSA Africa director Colin Oliver indicates
that the Latchways range is entirely
different, yet perfectly complementary to
the MSA range of fall protection solutions.
He believes that the product range now
has a better reach into Africa, thanks to a

BELOW LEFT: Colin Oliver, MSA Director.
BELOW CENTRE: Ian Fraser, Managing Director
of RTS Africa Engineering.
BELOW RIGHT: Gerrit van Zyl, Managing Director
of Renttech South Africa.
OPPOSITE PAGE: UNISA Students visit Robor.

22 Steel Construction Vol. 40 No. 4 2016

larger network of existing resellers and
distributors that have direct support from
the OEM.
“This synergistic partnership offers a
high-quality turnkey solution to the market
that is backed up with unrivalled aftersales service. Adding the Latchways range
to our existing solutions is beneficial to
our customers, as we now provide the
end-user with a comprehensive portfolio
of fall arrest solutions that can be used
individually, or in conjunction with one
another,” he states.
Oliver anticipates that MSA Africa has
the potential to grow its fall arrest
business significantly during the course
of 2016.“This acquisition holds enormous
potential for us to dramatically expand
our specialised fall protection portfolio
to potentially become the largest across
existing Sub-Saharan African markets, while
penetrating new sectors, such as aviation,”
he concludes.

Perspective, innovation
and positivity: the keys to
successfully mastering current
economic challenges
In challenging circumstances it is
refreshing, at the very least, to hear
one of the most experienced figures in
South Africa’s engineering sector offer
an unabashedly positive view of the
country’s future. That may be because Ian
Fraser, Managing Director of RTS Africa
Engineering, has the advantage of the long
view. “I was born in 1940, and things were
challenging then, to say the least,” Fraser
remarks.

Fraser does not diminish the seriousness of
current political and economic events, but
maintains they must be kept in perspective.
“In many ways, we’ve been here before.
The rand dropped in value overnight by
about 70% after P.W. Botha’s ‘Rubicon’
speech. Commodities internationally have
crashed previously. Both Fitch and Standard
& Poor’s kept South Africa at junk status for
several years after the advent of democracy,”
he says.
The answer to the challenges now, as then,
is to keep on keeping on:“Down at the
‘coalface’, we just get up in the morning
and we go out and do it,” he comments.
In Fraser’s case, this has involved building
a specialised engineering company
with noted expertise in dust extraction,
hydrogen generation and boiler tube leak
detection.
Fraser’s work also brings him into contact
with several other industries, including
the glass, steel and energy sectors. He
encounter s businesses that are struggling,
but also companies that are booming
in spite of local and global economic
uncertainty.
“To give you just one example: we have
a fabricator in Pretoria who does all our
metal work for us and is extremely busy. So
the critical question is: Why are some not
able to do it, and others are?” he asks.
“I have to say that I believe the key issue
here is innovation.You have to remain
aware of what is changing. The minute you
let technology pass you by, you are lost.”