Company Profile  
   
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• 		Rance Timber “Ingrained Quality” pine?
Sawmilling Facilities
Social Responsibility
Amathole Timber Holdings (PTY) Ltd Black Economic Empowerment
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 Amathole Forestry Company (AFC)
History
Company Personnel		    
 
 
 
Rance Timber has been in business for 65 years, and was incorporated sixty years ago. This experience has taught the company to produce pine lumber to suit its customers' service and quality requirements. Rance Timber's future is secured by a satisfied customer base, loyal employees, good management and a secure log supply.

We endeavour to produce the highest quality pine lumber products with the best possible service. At Rance, the customer is “king” and we are renowned for our quality kiln dried products and excellent customer service. [back to top]
    
 
 
  The company operates two sawmills in close proximity to one another:
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Kubusi Sawmill, which is the company's large log sawmill with sawn board output production of 45 000m3 per annum.
  
       
 
  • Sandile Sawmill, which is the company's small log sawmill with sawn board output production of 16 000m3 per annum.    
All lumber is kiln-dried pine with modern control and scheduling techniques and is end-trimmed, sized and packaged to customer requirements.

Included in the drymill production facilities are sizing, finger jointing, moulding and CCA treatment plants. [back to top]

  
 
 
Rance Timber is situated in an economically poor rural area and takes its social responsibilities to its location environment seriously. Shareholders, directors and management are all people from the local communities and dividends and salaries are retained locally. Employees and communities are assisted by the company with transport, schooling, housing, sports and health care. [back to top]
  
 
 
 
Rance Timber is a pioneer with Black Economic Empowerment in the timber industry in South Africa, and was the first company to introduce employee share ownership in the sawmilling industry on any significant scale.

Rance Timber sawmills operate as a subsidiary of the new Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) company, Amathole Timber Holdings (ATH), which was created by Rance Timber in 1999 to bid for the state plantations which were being privatized in the Stutterheim area.

ATH was successful in this bid and took ownership of the state company, Amathole Forestry Company (AFC), on 1 April 2005. AFC operates as a subsidiary of ATH and a sister company to Rance Timber.

Key aspects of the BEE structure are:

    
     
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The employees of Rance Timber and AFC will own 15% of ATH through the landmark Amathole Worker's Trust, thereby providing significant long term and sustainable economic benefits to the rural people of the region who were historically marginalized by apartheid,
    
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Another BEE company Senzangakhona Investments owns a further 15% of ATH,

  
  • Together the BEE ownership is 30% of both the forestry and sawmilling companies, which exceeds government's empowerment criteria for the industry,  
  • This BEE structure was created by Rance Timber long before government introduced an empowerment charter for the forest industry.  
         
   

Mr. Moses Qomoyi (left), Director of AFC & Rance Timber, Minister of Water Affairs & Forestry, Mrs. Buyelwa Sonjica (Centre) & Mr. Chris Rance (right), Director of AFC & Rance Timber at the signing of the 70 year lease for the Amathole Plantations.

    
 
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Rance Timber's sister company, AFC, operates 15 000ha of pine plantations in the Stutterheim, Keiskammahoek and Hogsback areas leased from the state for 70 years.

Key aspects of the lease are:

    
 

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The plantations are managed in terms of environmental standards certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (© FSC A.C. 1996) (Amathole Forestry Company - Annual Public Summary - May 2009),

The lease recognizes the rights of communities which require access to the forests for social, cultural and economic purposes,

The public continue to have access to the forests in terms of the National Forest Act,

Adjacent communities will benefit directly from lease rentals,

The lease recognizes the rights of land claimants, and

It accommodates government's policies on future land ownership by communities and individuals which were historically disadvantaged by apartheid whilst preserving the forests as a national resource of strategic importance. [back to top]

 
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The late Mr CJ (Jack) Rance founded the business in 1940 and incorporated the company C.J. Rance (PTY) Ltd) in 1944 with headquarters and a re-processing factory in Alice (90kms from Stutterheim). He operated a number of small sawmills in the Eastern Cape and in former Transkei, which pioneered the sawmilling industry in the Eastern Cape, until all the sawmills in the latter region were expropriated by the previous government during the apartheid era.

Thereafter the company purchased the defunct State-owned sawmill at Kubusi and re-located to Stutterheim in 1960. Kubusi sawmill has grown with its log supply and has modernized and expanded over the years. Sandile sawmill was purchased from an insolvent estate in 2001.

In 2005 Rance Timber's new holding company ATH purchased Amathole Forestry Company from the state, and introduced a landmark 30% black economic empowerment ownership structure into the forest and sawmilling industry. [back to top]

    
   
    Sales  
 

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Des Hansel : des@rancetimber.co.za Sales Manager
Graham Hansel : ghansel@rancetimber.co.za Marketing Assistant
  Operations Managers
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• 		Ashly Volker : ashly@rancetimber.co.za Primary Processing; Wetmill
Duane Bennett : duane@rancetimber.co.za Secondary Processing; Drymill
Wayne King : wayne@rancetimber.co.za Harvesting and Workshop Manager
Harold Mrashula, Log Procurement and Transport Supervisor
Ted Warren, Head Saw Doctor
Paul Moseley : paulm@rancetimber.co.za Financial and Administration Manager
Jennie Petzer, Personnel Administration
  Envirogro (Composted Pine Bark Growing Medium)
  • Graham Hansel : ghansel@rancetimber.co.za Envirogro Operations Manager
  Directors
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 M.K. (Lu) Dowell, Mrs: Non-executive Director
N.N. (Squash) Ngonyama, Mrs: Non-executive Director
Moses Qomoyi : moses@rancetimber.co.za Director Resource Procurement and Infrastructure Development
John Rance: jcrance@rancetimber.co.za Operations Director
Chris Rance: chris@rancetimber.co.za Finance and Administration Director
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COMPANY PROFILE