SAB Miller, the international brewer, on Wednesday announced one of South Africa’s biggest black empowerment deals, disclosing plans to sell a R6bn ($750m) chunk of its local subsidiary to employees, a charitable foundation and store owners who sell the company’s products.

“This is truly broad based,” said Graham Mackay, chief executive, who said that 10 per cent of SAB Ltd would be given to these new black owners.

“We are not just taking a group of high-profile figures... [This is being] directed at stakeholders”, he added, drawing a distinction between other controversial narrowly based schemes.

Since the end of apartheid, South Africa’s companies have come under pressure to comply with strict ownership quotas as well as other equal opportunities rules. More than R500bn of the country’s corporate wealth has been transferred to black businesses in dozens of deals.

But many of the empowerment transactions have simply transferred ownership to high-profile politically connected black individuals and have been criticised for bringing little benefit to the country’s black majority. 

Broad-based deals which hand control to workers, customers and other groups – such as the one announced on Wednesday – have become more common especially since the middle of this decade.  “It is politically much more acceptable to do it this way,” said Reg Rumney, head of the centre for economics journalism at Rhodes University who has followed black economic empowerment (BEE) closely in recent years.

“There has been a complaint that this is a process that just empowers a few,” said Cyril Ramaphosa, a director of SAB, prominent leader of the African National Congress and himself a beneficiary of black economic empowerment. ”This deal is very different. It gets a big thumbs-up from me.” 

SAB Miller, whose affirmative action policies under the apartheid regime have been regarded as pioneering, is offering 4 per cent of its South African subsidiary to its 9,000 local employees, of whom 80 per cent are black.

An equal proportion is being offered to owners of shabeens (taverns) and drinks stores, although these will have to be either licensed or seeking a licence and – unlike employees – will make a small down payment for their shares. A 2 per cent stake is being channelled to a foundation that will represent disadvantaged local communities.

SAB Ltd is not listed, but the shares will pay a dividend – dependent on local operating performance – and the paper is convertible after 10 years into SAB Miller equities. Vendor financing techniques have become more commonplace in BEE transactions and will mean SAB Ltd’s new black shareowner base will avoid the kind of problems afflicting some other BEE consortia that have had to rely on bank loans to acquire corporate stakes.

With South Africa now in recession some companies are holding or cutting the dividends on which black empowerment groups rely to service their debts.