    | Francois van NiekerkFrancois van Niekerk founded the Mertech Group in 1980. The company grew from very modest beginnings to currently some 200 companies employing over 1200 people and active in 10 industry sectors mainly in South Africa but also throughout Africa and the EU. Francois was nominated as a Difference Maker based on his prolonged contribution to the benefit of the entire South African and continental African society, his leadership in the domain of philanthropy and his international recognition as philanthropist. Particularly also on the furtherance of strategies to benefit the poor by generating interest amongst the business community for them to join forces toward eradicating the growing divide between those above and below the poverty divide. Mergon Foundation: in global philanthropic terms, the Mergon Foundation is rather unique in not only holding 65% of the entire business but certainly also in avoiding any reference to the founder or in the legal entrenchment of continuous family control. Francois van Niekerk’s Personal Testimony: the current Mertech Group started in 1980 from practically zero. Continued survival and eventual success were clearly by God’s grace and mercy alone. It is an almost incomprehensible privilege to see how God keeps shaping Mertech and the Mergon Foundation into a vehicle through which the credo Regni Negotia Extendimus or ‘Expanding His Kingdom through Business’ is increasingly being fulfilled. May obedience to God as our controlling Shareholder keep the Mertech Group, Mergon Foundation and all our associates in His will. |
| Telephone number +27 21 816 1111 Email address info@mergon.co.za |