GladAfrica announces acquisition of Ariya Project Managers

Noel Mashaba: executive chairman (right), Kulani Curtis Lebese: group CEO (middle) and Sigi Naidoo: Ariya Project Managers (left)

The acquisition gears GladAfrica to be the largest 100% black-owned consultancy group in Southern Africa.

"We wanted to create a completely African-born organisation within the built environment, while realising our vision of creating life-changing built-environment solutions," says GladAfrica's executive chairman, Noel Mashaba.

"The group will now operate and offer all full services from all nine provinces in South Africa with a strengthened project management capacity and the ability to further customise our comprehensive selection of project management services."

Recent projects

Ariya is wholly black-owned with a 35% black women shareholding, as well as a level 2 B-BBEE and an international ISO 9001: 2008 accreditation. Ariya's list of recent projects includes the MyCity BRT in Cape Town, Green Point Stadium and the University of Mpumalanga.

While GladAfrica will retain its engineering consulting arm, the group will establish a new specialised company to focus primarily on project management services, including development management, tenant coordination and installation and procurement management. Ariya's current managing director, Sigi Naidoo, will continue as managing director of the new entity.