Billionaire Patrice Motsepe aims to build a world class business by extending affordable financial services and products to people who were previously ignored. His plan will take a big step forward with the enlarged stake in Alexander Forbes taken by African Rainbow Capital Investments (ARC).

ARC will buy more shares in the country’s biggest pension funds administrator and will replace US-based retirement and investment adviser Mercer as strategic shareholder in Alexander Forbes. Mercer will retain a 4.5% stake in Alexander Forbes while ARC will hold an effective 41%.

“We see a big opportunity at the lower end of the market as we have already demonstrated with TymeBank, Afrocentric and various other investments,” said ARC co-CEO, Johan van Zyl. “Being able to offer financial services to more people requires scale in order to generate efficiencies that can lower the cost for the customer, and Alexander Forbes’s dominant position allows us to do that.” ..