Sasfin cuts 40 people from business banking unit - including its former CEO

Sasfin Holdings has cut 40 people from its struggling business and commercial banking unit, including the division's former chief executive Sandile Shabalala.

Following a strategic review, Sasfin said it became clear that certain components of its business and commercial banking division had failed to achieve the scale necessary to generate meaningful returns on equity. As a result, it said "tough decisions" were taken in January 2023 to streamline the unit, resulting in the collapse of an entire management layer within the business and commercial banking division, Sasfin said in its annual integrated report on Wednesday.

That resulted in Sasfin eliminating specialised lending from its business and commercial banking unit and dropping its team of broad-based business bankers, with the group's annual report saying the reduction in staff was executed through mutual separation agreements and a formal section 189 retrenchment process. Among the unit's casualties are its former chief executive, Shabalala, who only joined Sasfin in January 2022 specifically to spearhead its growth.