Leo Chih Hao Chou

Leo is the Executive Chairman of Sygma Investments, a private investment company based in Cape Town with holdings in International brand distribution, retail, niche logistics and investments in marketable securities and treasury management. Leo previously served as Chairman and CEO of Snowball Wealth, a privately held investment company, which was sold to Conduit Capital Limited. Leo has 15 years of investment and capital allocation experience. For the nine years that Leo managed Snowball, the net assets of the business grew more than 30 times. Leo attended Dale College in King William’s Town matriculating in 1999. He obtained his Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of South Africa.

Leo founded Sygma Investments in 2005 to manage private equity and marketable securities investments. Through Sygma, he has experience in running businesses, managing restructurings, enforcing liquidations and building multi-million Rand businesses from scratch. Amongst others, Sygma built Brazilian Sandals Company, using the Havaianas trademark, from scratch to over R100 million in annual revenue. In 2009, Leo founded Snowball Wealth, a private investment company, that hold stakes in JSE-listed companies. He achieved annual compound (audited) returns of 31.8% for Snowball shareholders and grew assets from R15m to over R500m. Before launching Snowball, Leo managed a family investment portfolio that achieved an average annual pre-tax (unaudited) return of 37.4%. If the two records are combined, Leo managed to consistently earn over 30% per year for 15 years.