CEO Baloyi: New broom sprucing up Sasol for huge local opportunities

Chemical engineer Simon Baloyi has made the ultimate Sasol journey - from bursary student to CEO. In recent years, Baloyi was part of the executive team faced with a plunging share price (R300 to under R20 in first three months of 2020) and the subsequent forced sale of assets to slash its excessive debt. In this interview with BizNews editor Alec Hogg, Sasol’s new CEO shows those lessons have been well learned: his priority is to build a bullet-proof balance sheet and ensure highly disciplined allocation of capital, an area where Sasol has not shone in the past decade and a half. It helps his cause that the Sasol board has tempered its ambitions - now prioritising local opportunities over the offshore Hail Marys whose massive cost overruns ran up huge debt. An encouraging story, a must-watch for millions of investors with direct exposure to South Africa’s coal-to-fuel and chemicals champion.