Company Announcement - Ascendis Health Limited today announced that it has further strengthened its growing BEE ownership through the settlement of the first of three transfers of Ascendis ordinary shares, from majority shareholder Coast2Coast, to WDB Investment Holdings Proprietary Limited and Senatla Capital Proprietary Limited.

Commenting on the share transfer, Ascendis Chief Executive Officer Dr. Karsten Wellner said, “The rationale for concluding the original R50 million BEE investment directly with C2C as announced last year was to allow for WDBIH and Senatla Capital to achieve their focused investment mandates and for Ascendis to benefit from increased BEE ownership and achieve our national transformation goals while not diluting the positions of the current Ascendis shareholders.”

WDBIH is a private enterprise which was formed in 1996 with its major beneficiary and shareholder being the WDB Trust, whose beneficiaries are a broad-base of rural women and communities. WDBIH’s investment mandate is to invest in high growth sectors in South Africa and Africa, where it can generate capital growth as well as access dividends. Senatla Capital is a private equity investment manager that is 100% Black owned.  In its two funds, Senatla Capital focuses on investments in Growth Capital, BEE Secondaries and Equity Risk Capital.  Since its incorporation in 2010, Senatla Capital has made investments in Energy, Financial Services, Media and Health Care. Senatla Capital has over the past 5 years accumulated assets under management exceeding R350 million and is currently raising additional capital in its second fund.

This agreement as well as a previous R200 million Mineworkers Investment Company Proprietary Limited deal are strategically important for Ascendis and its underlying businesses, as they show the ongoing commitment of existing BEE shareholders associated to the groups responsible corporate citizenship mandate. It also brings the current BEE shareholding of Ascendis to approx. 14.3%, strengthening its position to service contracts for hospitals, clinics and government tenders, especially in light of the government’s commitment to implementation of the National Health Insurance scheme.

Dr. Wellner concludes; “As we have always said, we aim to deliver on our promises and today is again one of those days, while at the same time we are continually seeking complimentary alliances and there is a strong possibility of further exciting announcements in the near future.”