Reatile’s Chief Commercial Officer Sunette Smith
Two wind farms in Reatile Group’s portfolio of 29 renewable assets alone cost a combined R7.3 billion to build.
Ask Reatile’s Chief Commercial Officer Sunette Smith what she looks at first on a new transaction before she’s seen the numbers and her answer is immediate.
“The partners, every time.”
“With the right fundamentals, the numbers will be negotiated and shaped to fit but the misaligned partners can drain value from a great transaction regardless of how good the deal looks on paper.”
Smith works on Reatile’s acquisitions, the LNG strategy, through the Zululand Energy Terminal, as well as the construction and operation of its renewable-energy projects.
She is often one of the few women sitting around the table when those deals are being negotiated, and sometimes the only one.
She doesn’t make much of it.
“I’m often one of few women, if not the only woman, at the table, and honestly, I don’t think about it much,” Smith said.
“What I focus on is being the most prepared person in the room and ensuring our position is clear, fair, and commercial. This is how I close deals successfully.”
It is a table she arrived at through years of commercial and financial work across some very different parts of African industry.
Smith spent more than eight years at Murray & Roberts as a Commercial & Financial Director, working across mining and industrial operations in several African markets.
She later became Financial Director at Capital Star Steel, a WBHO subsidiary in Mozambique supplying steel pipe to the oil, gas and mining industries.
She joined Reatile in 2016 as Executive Group Compliance Officer, with a remit spanning compliance, governance, risk and financial management.
By 2020, her work had moved into the group’s renewable-energy portfolio, covering business development, transactions, project implementation and operations.
Today, she is Reatile’s Chief Commercial Officer.
Over the same period, Reatile’s renewable-energy portfolio has grown substantially.
Eight years ago, Reatile held a 15% significant minority equity stake in each of six renewable-energy projects.
Today, it holds significant minority stakes in 29 renewable-energy assets.
In 2024 alone, the company closed 13 transactions.
Smith’s days can mean negotiations, closing deals, flights and board meetings all landing in the same week.
Looking back at her previous three weeks, she joked about “probably leaving too many coffee cups to go cold.”
“Somehow every day brings us closer to where we need to be and I still leave most days more energised than I arrived,” she said.
