Never pay for any CBT, test or assessment as part of any recruitment process. When in doubt, contact us
The Development Bank of Southern Africa ("DBSA”) is a development finance institution wholly owned by the South African Government. Its purpose is to accelerate sustainable socio-economic development to improve the quality of life of the people in South Africa, SADC and Rest of Africa by providing financial and non-financial investments in the social a...
Job Description
- The Investment Officer is responsible for executing the strategic objectives of the business in collaboration with the Transacting Head whilst being accountable to move investment opportunities / projects (provided by the Coverage Team) from early review to bankability.
Key Responsibilities
Conduct Transaction Assessment and meets DBSA’s Mandate
- Evaluate the feasibility of investment opportunities / project transactions with a view of ensuring that they are commercially sound prospects for debt financing and is aligned to the DBSA’s strategy and mandate.
- Make transactions bankable by identifying and mitigating key risk issues by working closely with Investment Support Team (Sector Specialists, Country Risk Specialists, Financial Analysts, etc.)
- Provide value to transactions for the benefit of the client through knowledge of the subject, innovation and lateral thinking.
- Provide input into early review proposals and documentation in the agreed format.
Execute Transactions & Drive the Credit Approval Process to ensure best class output
- In liaison with the Head: Transacting, structure and negotiate the detailed terms of the deal / transaction with Treasury, Legal, and Loan Administration Teams to drive the approval of transactions.
- Close deal / transactions by obtaining the relevant internal approvals for the transactions and leading or actively participating in the successful conclusion of negotiations.
- Actively manage the transaction unit to drive the credit approval process in its entirety from early review to the relevant approval committees.
- Ensure proposals submitted to these committees are well structured and documented for effective decision making.
- Implement transactions by facilitating the preparation or managing the preparation of complex multiple jurisdiction documents and compliance with all required procedures, laws and regulations.
- In liaison with the Head: Transacting resolve any potential constraints in the lending value chain.
- Manage all risk aspects of the continent wide financing delivery function, in terms of ensuring appropriate structuring of investment risks and on-going mitigations of operations-related risks.
- Ensure sound financial capital management through assuming responsibility for stewardship over the capital under management, and as well as efficient utilisation of financial resources.
- Ensure the capturing of learning opportunities post transaction conclusion for continuous improvement and ensuring successful delivery of deals.
Monitor Client Performance
- Record and continuously monitor country/industry/client performance i.e. revenues
Key Measures
- Revenue performance in terms of Interest Income and Fees generated.
- Delivery on the agreed Operations Mandate; these include:
- Growth rate in assets of loan book;
- Annual disbursements, commitments and approvals;
- Quality of loan book;
- % of loan book in priority geographies and sectors;
- Number of new clients;
- Number of potential deals worked on
- Management of Client Relationships and key Stakeholders.
Expertise & Technical Competencies
Minimum Requirements
- A Bachelor’s degree i.e. Finance, Business, Accounting, or Economics;
- 2-5 years’ experience in appraising, negotiating and closing Project Finance, Corporate Finance, or Structured Finance transactions in a financial institution;
- Experience in securing infrastructure investment deals in relevant sectors/geographies in SA and/or Africa.
- Experience in initiating and developing new business strategies and opportunities to create a pipeline of development impact projects ensuring deal flow and bankability.
- Experience in securing deals of appropriate size for sectors and geographies in question.
- Good networks and relations with clients, global and regional private investors and banks in order to identify and source viable projects/investments.
- Successful track record in leading project teams with high level stakeholders and qualified professionals;
- Experience in using Financial models;
- Comprehensive knowledge of the complex financial and regulatory environments across Africa.
- In depth knowledge and understanding of infrastructure market, financial markets and the macro landscape.
- Demonstrable experience in identifying client challenges and playing an active part in finding innovative solutions.
- Experienced communicator and negotiator
- Strong negotiation skills with the ability to close deals.
- Proven experience in working with snr stakeholders in highly political environments in South Africa and the rest of Africa
- Role requires flexibility to be deployed to other business units if required
Desirable Requirements
- A post-graduate qualification such as a CA, CFA or MBA
Required Personal Attributes
BEHAVIOURAL COMPETENCIES
Customer Service Orientation
- Tries to understand the underlying needs of customers and matches these needs to available or customized products and services.
- Adapts processes and procedures to meet on-going customer needs.
- Utilises the feedback received by customers, in order to develop new and/or improve existing services/ products that relate to their on-going needs.
- Thinks of new ways to align DBSA’s offerings with future customer needs.
Self-awareness and Self Control
- Withholds effects of strong emotions in difficult situations.
- Keeps functioning or responds constructively despite stress.
- May apply special techniques or plan ahead of time to manage emotions or stress.
Strategic and Innovative Thinking
- Experiments with new approaches, tests scenarios, questions assumptions and challenges conventional thinking.
- Creates new concepts that are not obvious to others, leveraging internal and external sources of information, to build incremental revenue and growth opportunities.
Driving delivery of results
- Sets challenging goals that will have a significant impact on the business or support the organisational strategy.
- Commits significant resources and/or time to ensure that challenging goals are achieved, while also taking action to mitigate risk.
Teamwork & Cooperation
- Acts to promote a friendly climate and good morale, and resolves conflicts.
- Creates opportunities for cross-functional working.
- Encourages others to network outside of their own team/department and learn from their experience.
TECHNICAL
Risk Identification & Assessment skills
- Advises on applicable aspects of risk identification and assessment.
- Assesses and links short-term tasks in the context of long-term business strategies or perspectives.
Business Development
- Takes overall lead for pro-active business development at national and international level.
- Initiates, reviews and interprets competitor environment reviews and take actions accordingly.
- Formulates and modify market approaches on the basis of competitor analyses.
- Leads the formulation, development and implementation of the business development strategy to generate new business opportunities in public and private sector delivery of infrastructure.
- Identifies and develop new markets, products and clients.
- Leads the participation and presentation of an organisation at investment conferences and roundtable discussions.
- Coordinates business activities to ensure that investment initiatives are in support of government BEE strategies, broader national and regional economic development strategies.
- Promote compliance and alignment with the strategic imperatives of both individual clients and the organisation of investment and development interventions.
- Builds capacity to coordinate, control and manage the activities and efforts required for the implementation of the plan.
- Builds capacity to conduct project origination exercises.
Business Acumen
- Deep understanding of commercial drivers and is able to take decisions based on an assessment of alternatives concerning complex business situations.
- Deep understanding of economic priorities of South Africa and Africa and how they can be implemented to meet an organisations strategic objectives.
- Deep understanding of the need to coordinate efforts with many government entities, private sector, community groups and individuals to ensure effective implementation of new policies and regulations.
- Takes actions to fit business strategy.
- Assesses and links short-term tasks in the context of long-term business strategies or perspectives.
- Reviews own actions against the organisation's strategic plan; includes the big picture when considering possible opportunities or projects or thinks about long-term applications of current activities.
- Anticipates possible responses to different initiatives.
- Understands the projected direction of the industry and how changes might impact the organisation.
Deal Origination
- Utilises extensive networks with developers, sponsors and consultants in DBSA-mandated sectors to identify project preparation opportunities.
- Conducts project identification, conceptualisation and preliminary structuring of projects structuring and value preposition for DBSA.
- Applies analytical skills to understand the technical, environmental, institutional, financial and legal components of projects to present a structure to prepare the project.
- Understands the regulatory and policy environments and offers advice in preparing/structuring of projects.
- Conducts market research, business analysis and profiling to identify opportunities for infrastructure development in SA, SADC and selected African countries.
- Provides and grows the opportunity for DBSA equity investments.
- Independently structures and negotiates and concludes engagement letters, term sheets and facility agreements.
Project Management
- Initiates project plans and secures resources for projects that span area or department boundaries.
- Uses estimating techniques and develops project risk management approaches.
- Has an in-depth and practical understanding of how to maximize the effectiveness of project teams.
Planning & Organizing
- Is relied on to help others plan and organise their workload.
- Uses effectively advance time management processes to deal with high workload and tight deadlines.
- Organises, prioritises and schedules tasks so they can be performed within budget and with the efficient use of time and resources.
- Achieves goals in a timely manner, despite obstacles encountered, by organising, reprioritizing and re-planning
Financial Acumen
- Makes sound financial decisions after having analysed their impacts on the organisation, partner agencies, and community.
- Effectively prepares budgetary submissions and forecasts for own department.
- Knows the internal and external factors that impact on resource and asset availability.
- Is able to interpret management account reports in an operational/commercial context and take action as appropriate to maximize revenues and control costs.
Reporting & Communication
- Designs / customizes reports to meet user needs.
- Prepares complex or tailored reports, gathers information from a variety of sources, analyses and includes in a report.
- Keeps standard reports under review and proposes improvements to meet user needs
Presentation Skills
- Knows how to deliver arguments persuasively by employing a range of advanced presentation techniques (e.g. the appropriate use of body language, how to close a presentation so that the audience continues to think about the subject matter etc.).
- Has knowledge of various feedback mechanisms to check levels of audience understanding.
Negotiation
- Has an appreciation of cultural sensitivities and differences.
- Effectively employs a variety of advanced behavioural/interpersonal competencies to control the negotiation situation.
- Is able to take the lead in a variety of sensitive negotiation situations requiring high levels of tact and diplomacy
- Is able to place a discrete negotiation situation within the context of a broader long-term relationship and is not threatened by conceding ground to protect the longer-term interests of DBSA.