Johnny Copelyn entered the company as the head of the investment wing of the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers Union, where he was formerly general secretary.
11 Facts About Johnny Copelyn
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Johnny Copelyn resigned from his parliamentary seat in 1997 to take over HCI, henceforth running it as a private-equity holding company, with his erstwhile business partner, fellow former unionist Marcel Golding.
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Johnny Copelyn is descended from Lithuanian Jews and joined Habonim as a teenager.
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Johnny Copelyn soon became a national organiser for the National Union of Textile Workers.
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Johnny Copelyn was elected to a seat in the National Assembly, the lower house of the new South African Parliament.
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Johnny Copelyn and Golding resigned from Parliament in 1997 to run Hosken Consolidated Investments, a holding company headquartered in Cape Town and publicly listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
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Johnny Copelyn was installed as chief executive officer and Golding as executive chairperson.
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The model of union investment pioneered by Johnny Copelyn and Golding through HCI was controversial among leftists and in some accounts promoted the rise of "business unionism".
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Johnny Copelyn continued to run the SACTWU investment company, the major shareholder in HCI; the investment company grew from start-up capital of R15.6 million to a value of more than R7.5 billion in 2016.
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Johnny Copelyn's stake was worth R837 million by 2014 and close to R1 billion in 2022.
11.
Johnny Copelyn became a non-executive director of Impact in 2014 and took over as non-executive chairman in 2020, around the same time that the company obtained an interest in a second Wild Coast exploration zone; former COSATU general secretary Jay Naidoo has been publicly critical of Johnny Copelyn's role in the initiative.