South Africa’s wealthiest people in 2007
The Sunday Times of South Africa recently announced South Africa’s billionaire’s club (In South African Rand, divide by ~7 to get to USD). You can find the article here (You may have to register to get to the list).Here is the top ten list:1. Lakshmi Mittal of Mittel Steel SA – ZAR27bn ($4bn),2. Nicky Oppenheimer of Anglo American – ZAR16bn ($2.3bn),3. Patrice Motsepe (African Rainbow Minerals and Sanlam) – ZAR13.5bn ($2bn)4. Rembrandt Trust – ZAR8.3bn ($1.2bn)5. Elephant Consortium (Telkom SA) – ZAR5bn ($700mm)6. Bill Venter of Allied Electronics – ZAR4.2bn ($615mm)7. Giovanni Ravazzotti (Ceramic and Italtile) – ZAR4bn ($586mm)8. Ackerman Family (Pick n Pay Holdings) – ZAR3.7bn ($542mm)9. Bruno Steinhoff (PSG Group and Steinhoff) – ZAR3.7bn ($540mm)10. Laurie Dippenaar (Discovery, FirstRand and RMB) – ZAR3.3bn ($483mm)Here is another list of South Africa’s wealthiest people. There’s some overlap.I wonder why Elon Musk (worth at least $300mm and should be in the top 20) and Mark Shuttleworth (sold to Verisign for $575mm) are not listed. Elon may not be deemed as a South African anymore. I think Mark still lives in South Africa.What to get on the list? Then you may find a few tips in this Secrets of a self-made billionaire Forbes article.Any one else that you think they missed?
Mark Shuttleworth – Ubuntu founder and first African in Space
Mark Shuttleworth is a young, South African multi-millionaire who places himself in the category of people who are both privileged and lucky and want to do something positive with their good fortune. His Ubuntu Project, HBD enterprise, and the Shuttleworth Foundation all serve as reflections of that thought.Born in Welkom, South Africa in 1973, Shuttleworth grew up in Cape Town and graduated from the University of Cape Town with a business science degree in finance and information systems. While still in college he founded Thawte, a company that specializes in Internet security and digital certificates. Thawte became the first company outside of the United States to offer an encrypted server, making commerce over the Internet more secure. In 1999, he sold it to VeriSign for stock valued at $575 million.
Using the profits from that sale Shuttleworth founded HBD Venture Capital, a group that invests in South African companies that hold the potential of serving a global marketplace. HBD refers to “Here Be Dragons,” a term used on ancient maps to mark uncharted territory. HBD invests in an interesting array of business ventures, from Themepack, a company that uses pencil cases to deliver messages to schoolchildren, to incuBeta, a Web2.0 company supplying paid search engine advertising and optimization. HBD recently invested ZAR25mm ($3.5mm) in incuBeta.Other investments include EDH, Metricap, Mybeat, and CSense Systems. HBD also offers managed investments: Impi Linux, Ubuntu’s provider in Africa; HIP2BSquare, which presents math and science to students as cool subjects and well-worth their time; and Fundamo, a leading company internationally of providing ways for organizations to do banking and other transactions from their mobile devices.
In 2004 Shuttleworth founded the Ubuntu project, a free, open source, Linux-based operating system that’s growing in popularity among businesses and individuals. “Ubuntu” is an African concept and was once described by Archbishop Desmond Tutu as defining an open person who is available and affirming to others, and who knows that they are part of a greater whole. The Ubuntu platform contains around 1,000 pieces of software that include spreadsheet, word processing, Web browsing, instant messaging and presentation programs. Several Dell computers now come preloaded with Ubuntu. Google also uses Ubuntu on the computers in their offices. Shuttleworth’s Canonical Ltd., headquartered in Europe, is the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu.Another example of Shuttleworth’s philosophy of sharing his wealth to benefit others is his Shuttleworth Foundation. This organization funds projects aimed at improving the quality and reach of education in Africa, and has done work in all nine provinces of South Africa. It also serves to fund ideas that can create positive change in civil society. The ideas selected must originate in South Africa or come from another part of the globe but be beneficial to South Africa. It is estimated that Shuttleworth has given away nearly half of his fortune to charitable causes.In April of 2002 Shuttleworth fulfilled his dream of space travel by flying with the Russian crew Soyuz TM-34 to the International Space Station. He spent a year of his life and $20 million of his bank account training for and paying for the privilege of becoming the second-ever private citizen (and the first African) to be launched into space. His trip wasn’t just for fun, however; he conducted several experiments during the flight, including research on AIDS, stem cells, and muscle development and atrophy. He trained in Star City, Russia, for the eight-day mission. Since he has been back on earth he has shared his experiences and at the same time promoting science and math to more than 100,000 students. This, in turn, led to Hip2BSquare.His blog, lists many of his likes and dislikes. They include Cesaria Evora, Sinatra, flashes of insight, skinny-dipping and the string theory (likes) plus legalese, wet grey winters and public speaking (dislikes). Shuttleworth is single and lives in London. He spends his spare time reading and lists travel, naturally, as a favorite hobby. He gets to travel the globe in his own jet, a Bombardier Global Express.
Read MoreSouth African businesspeople in the US
As a South African businessman living in the US, I’m always interested to find and research other successful South African businesspeople in America. This is the start of a series that will continue until I run out of people to profile.South Africa is known for a number of famous people. Nelson Mandela, Ernie Els, Gary Player, Charlize Theron, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mark Shuttleworth (Ubuntu fame) and serial entrepreneur Elon Musk. I know of a number of others, however you’ll have to wait to hear about them. My focus will be on businesspeople and not celebrities or politicians.Next time I’ll start by profiling Elon Musk of SpaceX.Send me an email if you want me to profile a specific businessperson.
Read MoreUbuntu @ Google
Recently Mark Shuttleworth hosted the Ubuntu Linux Developer’s Summit at Google in Mountain View.
You can view his presentation on Google Video. Btw, the Google Developer’s site is an interesting place to find APIs for Google and other cool sites and tools.My teenage son uses Ubuntu on his Dell PC and so far he can do everything he wants, i.e., AIM, web browsing, photo editing, and listening to MP3s. I installed Ubuntu on the Dell after a weekend of fun trying to restore Windows after a virus killed the machine.
Read More
Recent Comments