“Twelve years later in 2011, Motsepe, who owns successful South African Premier League side, Mamelodi Sundowns, occupied top spot on Sunday Times’ Annual Rich List. In 2012, with a worth of $2.7 billion, he was 10th on the Forbes list of African billionaires, a list he gas prominently featured on for years.”
South Africa’s only black billionaire Patrice Mosepe is one of few African billionaires whose successes have been disparaged for whatever excuses any discontented fellow wished to cook up.
The easiest way to trivialise Mosepe’s success is to attribute it to laws enforcing substantial black ownership in certain industries (such as mining, his business starting point) following the return to democracy of the southern African country in 1994. Perhaps he did profit from it, but was he the only black South African who could have?
Born Tlhopane Motsepe in 1962 to Augustine, a school teacher, he was named Patrice after Patrice Lumumba, Congolese independence leader and its first democratically elected prime minister who was ousted from government and was later executed by firing squad with the help of Belgian forces.
Mosepe’s first contacts with mining were at the convenience shop his father ran aside teaching, which was popular among black mine workers. So, from his father and the retinue of miners who thronged the shop, he learnt the art of business and its application to mining. He later studied to earn a law degree; and about the time Nelson Mandela was elected the country’s first black president in 1994, Motsepe himself became the first black partner in the law firm of Bowman Gilfillan.
Seeing that the new government had initiated the promotion of black empowerment and entrepreneurship, he deftly opted to specialise in mining and business law. He would later activate his connections to benefit from the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policy — which stipulated at least 26 per cent black ownership for companies willing to secure mining license — by arranging for finance on encouraging terms. He then founded a firm that began the purchase of the operating mines that have now become the source of his enormous wealth. In 1999, he teamed up with two of his associates to form Greene and Partners Investments. The rest is history.
Twelve years later in 2011, Motsepe, who owns successful South African Premier League side, Mamelodi Sundowns, occupied top spot on Sunday Times’ Annual Rich List. In 2012, with a worth of $2.7 billion, he was 10th on the Forbes list of African billionaires, a list he gas prominently featured on for years.
Without seeking knowledge in the relevant area (mining) and without the discerning ability to make the move right in the nick of time, where would Patrice Motsepe be today? And would South Africa have had its first black billionaire? Not likely!
Image via madamenoire.com
