John Battersby: Why Malema was a hit with UK investors

EFF leader Julius Malema

Following EFF leader Julius Malema’s visit to London, Alec Hogg caught up with John Battersby to get a better sense of how the UK market reacted to his visit. He started off by asking Battersby what he went over to London to do.

After 35 years in journalism, John Battersby became the inaugural London-based driver of Brand South Africa. During more than a decade of waving the flag for investment and tourism, he got to meet global movers and shakers. So there are few better placed than the London-based director of the SA-UK Chamber of Commerce to report back on Julius Malema’s visit to London last week where the EFF leader enthralled UK investors, attracting record crowds wherever he went. Battersby spoke to Biznews.com’s Alec Hogg.

It was a mixture of building relationships with senior journalists and correspondents over here, many of whom I knew from my journalistic career in South Africa and working for papers abroad.


 Then it was trying to build relationships with institutional investors. I would accompany the Ministers of Trade & Industry and Finance and sometimes the Deputy President etcetera when they came to do roadshows to present to the biggest institutional investors.

 I began to get a feel of which buttons one needed to press and how one presented South Africa as a desirable destination for trade, tourism, and investment, which is the role of Brand South Africa. Being the custodian of the brand means to create the climate in which one can more successfully (that’s the theory) persuade people to invest (in), trade (with), and visit South Africa.

Before we go into where they think we’re going at the moment, how important is the UK as an investor or a trading partner for South Africa?

It’s very important on both fronts. As a source of tourists, Britain is one of South Africa’s leading investors to this day. China has overtaken, about four or five years ago, as the biggest two-way trading partner but there’s still very significant trade from the UK and very strong relationships and the UK as regards South Africa as a very important destination.

Having left Brand South Africa and the International Marketing Council, you perhaps have a little more freedom to engage on a different basis to listen more, to hear how the British and certainly, those big investors are perceiving South Africa. Has it changed much in the last few years?