Sharon Phiri

Cash Converters Southern Africa was co-founded in 1994 when Richard Mukheibir (Chief Executive Officer) and Peter Forshaw (Chief Financial Officer) bought the licence to establish a master franchise of the Australian brand, the world leader in trading and marketing second-hand goods and now the world’s largest cash and asset converter. Cash Converters Southern Africa purchases merchandise from customers, enabling them to have instant access to cash. Since 2007, it has also offered short term loans against a customer’s valuables or against their salary. Cash Converters Southern Africa is built on a solid foundation of franchisee owner operators, guided by core values of passion, professionalism, integrity, respect and collaboration. It has already empowered nearly 100 franchisees to run their own businesses and create their own wealth. Each franchise store, in turn, provides job opportunities for an average of 12 employees, each supporting about five other people. This network of businesses is supported by robust processes and systems and ongoing training programmes for franchisees and staff. Dynamic growth of up to 20% per annum has created more than 85 Cash Converters franchise stores in Southern Africa (as at 1 January 2018). These stores process over 2.2 million transactions a year and have a combined annual turnover in excess of R1.4bn across all products and services. They are part of the rapidly expanding Cash Converters International network of 740 stores around the world. These can be found in such diverse countries as Australia, the founding country, the United Kingdom, Singapore, New Zealand, the UAE, as well as France. Cash Converters Southern Africa was a finalist for the Franchise Association of South Africa Franchisor of the Year Awards in 2014, 2015 and 2016.