Launch Africa, a leading early-stage pan-African venture capital fund has invested in 133 startups in 22 African countries closing over $36 million in its first round. Janade du Plessis, its co-founder, shares the crucial highlights of this journey into the continent and what Sol Kerzner taught him.



It is important for Janade du Plessis to start from the beginning, recounting the time, the imagery and the vibe of the vibrant, sandy, sprawling Cape Flats area to the east of Cape Town where he grew up in South Africa.



It is important for the co-founder of Launch Africa Ventures and Five35 Ventures – two companies prominent in the venture capital (VC) space in Africa today – to start with his mother.



Based in ‘Mother City’ Cape Town, he is close to the subject – and memories of a childhood that inescapably defined his future.



Those experiences have been invaluable, in traversing the continent and adding value to the lives of entrepreneurs – especially women – in Africa’s deepest pockets.



He has traveled to 50 of the 54 African countries, his bio states, but there are things you cannot include on your résumé – such as the beads of sweat and the tears of entrepreneurship that an itinerant life can bring.



But the 40-plus Du Plessis isn’t complaining, he is used to the hustling. It was in his past, and he sees it in his present, in the many people and startups he hopes to turn around on his travels.



“I come from a family of female entrepreneurs, so the first six years of my life before school, all I saw was hustle and women running businesses. They always went somewhere and came back really tired afterwards. My mom was hustling to feed the family, my aunt had a bakery…the women were doing things in their communities. This was stuff I learned from a young age,” he says.



Du Plessis taught himself to make things and sell them – baby steps for the future entrepreneur – and he also sold vegetables, peanuts and raisins to the community, learning the basics of cost management he still uses today.



“I always saw my mother struggle as an entrepreneur. Had the environment been ready, she would have been a fantastic leader in a big organization, but she never got the opportunity&#8230;That is why I am so deeply passionate about investing in women.”



For many, this sentiment is an afterthought, a token tick-mark or the tail end of any corporate narrative on success.



Not for Du Plessis. His Five35 Ventures is a pan-African female-focused VC fund investing in Africa’s female tech founders. Since its launch in April last year, it has completed 18 investments and is continuing to capital-raise, as currently, “only 1% of all VC funding goes to female founders”.



“I grew up under apartheid. Although they were hustling, my mom and aunts could not scale their businesses ever. It wasn’t allowed [at the time]…we don’t have those challenges anymore and yet, women still struggle. That’s my motivation to really provide capital to people left out or for some reason, marginalized…”



The “boring finance guy” that he calls himself did 18 years in the corporate world, including stints at the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Nigeria and Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) in South Africa, before founding Launch Africa. The corporate journey was an imperative rite of passage, especially in a country coming out of the apartheid era heralding the dawn of democracy and beckoning its educated youth to seize new opportunities.



With a post-graduate diploma in Actuarial Science from the University of Cape Town, Du Plessis’ first assignment was as a corporate finance analyst in Johannesburg for Standard Bank, on the trading desk and then in the mergers and acquisitions (M&amp;A) team, moving on to Goldman Sachs as an M&amp;A analyst in New York for three years, where life only meant work. “People said, ‘oh, you lived in New York’ and I was like, ‘I did not see anything, I was working’. But obviously, the world opened up for me. And looking back now, Africa really opened up to me. Nobody knew my name. They would just call me ‘Africa’, because I was the only intake from the continent.



“They would walk up to my desk and say ‘Africa, there’s this guy in Nigeria, can you contact him’? I quickly learned that, ‘ah, there’s a whole opportunity for me to make a name for myself’. So I upskilled and really became passionate about the continent.”



An MBA degree from the London Business School followed and thereafter, the chance in London to learn from the best through his stint as Executive Assistant to South African business magnate and legend Sol Kerzner, the founder (now late) of Kerzner International.



“For two years, I absolutely loved it,” says Du Plessis. “I went from this very technical corporate to learning how business is actually done on the other side, and Sol Kerzner was an excellent businessman. He always told me, ‘never hire for personality, always hire for a role’. He taught me to always use other people’s money and make sure your stakeholders are happy.”



Back in Johannesburg, Du Plessis was offered a position as a director with hospitality group Tsogo Sun, and thereafter a role in corporate finance and M&amp;A at RMB, where he stayed seven years, before deciding the GPS on his personal radar was not just South Africa, but all of Africa.



This trajectory led to him moving to Nigeria and starting his own social impact fund, Abrazo Capital, in 2004, when he even raised money from the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation.



The mandate of the fund was to connect women in rural areas to peri-urban and urban areas and create a supply chain, but there weren’t enough sustainable businesses in those rural areas, so Abrazo created its own businesses, bringing in women, training them, making them managers, and eventually, shareholders.



“[In the end], we do a management buy-out of ourselves in those businesses. So we create our own exits, obviously pumping some debt into it, and then we take the money out&#8230;”



The fund created 19 businesses in 14 African countries, and Du Plessis got to live in some of the continent’s most rural and under- developed areas.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="alignleft size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/vcrenu.png" alt="" class="wp-image-59315" style="width:288px;height:357px" width="288" height="357" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/vcrenu.png 349w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/vcrenu-242x300.png 242w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 288px) 100vw, 288px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Janade Du Plessis</figcaption></figure></div>


“I got to know these environments very well. And we had an exit IRR of 19%, where all impact funds back then were returning between 4% and 9% in dollar terms. So it was highly successful. It required me to be in those areas for three to nine months at a time. I am pretty much a city boy, but I loved it because you are building something, you’re seeing it emerge, and you’re seeing the impact it makes to other people’s lives,” smiles Du Plessis.



“Once you empower women, you know there is a shift. For me, that was not only an impact fund but a life-changing fund.”



The AfDB called to say they liked his model and appointed him their Chief Investment Officer (Private Sector) which Du Plessis was for four years but he yearned to return to the grassroots and work with entrepreneurs.



He wanted to come back to South Africa, and this was also when big tech was making waves.



An assignment with Nedbank as the Head of Venture Capital &amp; Alternative Investments in Johannesburg followed.



“We invested in Aerobotics, which was our first deal. It was a star performer. We came in at the pre-seed round, and funded it right up to Series A.”



Both at Abrazo and the AfDB, agriculture had been one of Du Plessis’ prime focus areas, so this was personally exciting.



“Through my Abrazo connections, overnight, after we did the investment, I introduced Aerobotics to about 40 co-operatives I previously worked with. Aerobotics have an amazing team, and [the company] is going to be a unicorn one day,” he predicts.



After his tenure at Nedbank, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, in October 2020, Du Plessis co-founded Launch Africa with Zachariah George.



“When I took the Nedbank job, one of the first things I did was sign up Startupbootcamp (a network of multi-corporate-backed accelerators helping startups scale internationally) as a service provider to provide us pipeline.” This is when he met George, a former Wall Street investment banker, now Launch Africa’s Managing Partner with Du Plessis. “Zach too has an amazing story, very different from mine and very interesting. He came to South Africa to watch the Soccer World Cup in 2010 and never left because he was like, ‘this is the land of opportunity’.



“He and I were always talking but from different perspectives, like his startups were great, but they were just not investment-ready for where all the capital actually sits, which is Series A and beyond. So we quickly realized that there is a massive gap at the seed stage; companies coming out of accelerators were doing whatever they could to raise Series A; but what they actually needed was 18 months of enough runway so they could get market traction, build a team; they don’t actually need that much capital, but they need time to build out the capacity of the team and get clients. This was the thesis of Launch Africa [based on the environment in 2019-2020],” says Du Plessis.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="800" height="800" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/1679918960663.png" alt="" class="wp-image-59336" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/1679918960663.png 800w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/1679918960663-300x300.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/1679918960663-150x150.png 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/1679918960663-768x768.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Zachariah George</figcaption></figure>



George attests that it has been a great journey so far but hard work: “People ask me, ‘Zach, how did you build the biggest VC fund in Africa with Janade in just two years?’ I tell people that if you are looking for shortcuts, don’t work in the VC industry.”



In April last year, they closed the first fund raising $36.2 million from 258 high-net-worth-individuals, family offices and funds; investors further invested an additional $16 million over and above into 44 of their startups.



They are invested in 133 startups across 22 African countries.



Seed Fund 2 was launched recently targeting $75 million to continue the work they did in Fund 1.



These are numbers Du Plessis is very proud of as he breathlessly reels off the facts: “We wanted to also change who we raised from. All the VCs in Africa are funded by the same people at the end of the day. I worked with a DFI and knew the restrictions they put on you and we wanted to have a high-value, quick decision-making fund. We targeted C-suite executives of global organizations to say, ‘your organization doesn’t have to invest, but why don’t you give us a minimum of $100,000’. In return, you get to see a high-volume fund, you can learn as much as possible, and you get co-investment rights without any fees&#8230;So what that means is ‘we will manage these deals on your behalf, and we don’t charge anything for it’. And that resulted in us raising $36.2 million.”



Next up was going beyond the big economies of Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa and Kenya, looking for more countries with an ecosystem that builds tech platforms – such as incubators and accelerators – where they could build relationships with them as with the corporates – such as banks and retailers – in these countries.



As examples, Du Plessis says they were the first institutional investor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo into a fintech called MaxiCash that’s “doing phenomenally well”; they were also the first in Sudan with an Uber-like ride-hailing service called Tirhal.



“As we understand these markets more, we are now actually more optimistic about Francophone Africa because of seeing early signs of these great startups being built. We come in very early, but the upside in terms of returns is obviously much higher. So I’ll tell you our star investment is a company called Gozem, the Uber equivalent in Togo and Benin.”



With a team of 14 spread across the continent, and an advisory board, there have been many challenges to overcome.



“VCs in Africa have to do so much more than anywhere in the world,” acknowledges Du Plessis.



But it’s all worth it.



“Being a fund manager is 60% admin, and 40% pure joy,” he laughs.



Du Plessis also runs the Abrazo Foundation in Cape Town, for refugee LGBTQ youth. It’s his “side hustle”, rehabilitating homeless young African people, who have escaped their countries looking for freedom, “because they can’t be who they are in their own country”. He manages to find them jobs or place them in companies.



“They come to South Africa where there are no employment opportunities and end up on the streets. They are skilled people who can value-add in society.”



It’s how Du Plessis defines impact. “For me, it’s all this, doing something that lives beyond your time.”

Entrepreneur businessman standing on lightbulb shaking hands with VC on money coins stack. Successful business negotiation, partnership. Selling startup business or merger agreement

Venture Forward: How This VC Fund Got To 133 Startups In 22 African Countries

As FORBES AFRICA celebrates a landmark 10th year, we look back on our stellar collection of cover stars and features and some of the most &#8220;quotable quotes&#8221; from the last ten years. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2020-Dec_Jan-RGB-793x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-52876" width="298" height="385" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2020-Dec_Jan-RGB-793x1024.jpg 793w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2020-Dec_Jan-RGB-232x300.jpg 232w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2020-Dec_Jan-RGB-768x991.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2020-Dec_Jan-RGB-1190x1536.jpg 1190w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2020-Dec_Jan-RGB.jpg 1258w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 298px) 100vw, 298px" /></figure></div>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">I often say I can sleep on a mud floor as well as a feathered bed and be very comfortable. It has made me someone who can do without things in life because of what we went through.-Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, December 2020 /January 2021</blockquote>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“IF WE CONTINUE DOING THE RIGHT THINGS IN AFRICA WE CAN CREATE A VERY EXCITING AND COMPETITIVE GLOBAL MARKET HERE.”– Patrice Motsepe, October 2011 (launch issue)</blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screenshot-2021-10-28-at-17.31.24.png" alt="" class="wp-image-53194" width="439" height="349" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screenshot-2021-10-28-at-17.31.24.png 686w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screenshot-2021-10-28-at-17.31.24-300x239.png 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 439px) 100vw, 439px" /></figure></div>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/1-782x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-52782" width="318" height="416" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/1-782x1024.jpg 782w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/1-229x300.jpg 229w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/1-768x1006.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/1-1173x1536.jpg 1173w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/1.jpg 1240w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 318px) 100vw, 318px" /></figure></div>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">THERE IS NO BULLSHIT WITH WOMEN. WE DON’T WASTE TIME OUT OF POLITENESS.– Wendy Appelbaum, August 2012</blockquote>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">You have to sit down and look at your business model and say ‘can it be interrupted’? – Jannie Mouton, July 2017</blockquote>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">LIFE IS ABOUT TRIPPING AND FALLING AND LEARNING FROM MISTAKES, PULLING YOUR STRENGTHS AND MOVING ON.– Gbenga Oyebode, July 2018</blockquote>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">It’s not only all about how much money you would have made and what you would have got. It’s about having a little bit of fun.” – Sol Kerzner, October 2014</blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2018-MARCH-RGB-793x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-52852" width="414" height="535" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2018-MARCH-RGB-793x1024.jpg 793w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2018-MARCH-RGB-232x300.jpg 232w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2018-MARCH-RGB-768x992.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2018-MARCH-RGB-1189x1536.jpg 1189w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2018-MARCH-RGB.jpg 1258w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 414px) 100vw, 414px" /></figure></div>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignleft size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2020-MAR-RGB-793x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-52878" width="336" height="434" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2020-MAR-RGB-793x1024.jpg 793w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2020-MAR-RGB-232x300.jpg 232w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2020-MAR-RGB-768x991.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2020-MAR-RGB-1190x1536.jpg 1190w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/FA-2020-MAR-RGB.jpg 1258w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 336px) 100vw, 336px" /></figure></div>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“If you fall flat on your face, beat yourself up and do it again until you succeed&#8230;” – Richard Branson, March 2018</blockquote>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“USING YOUR INFLUENCE TO CREATE IMPACT AND BETTER THE LIVES OF OTHERS — THAT IS WHAT BEING A POWERFUL WOMAN MEANS TO ME.” – Graça Machel, March 2020</blockquote>



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screenshot-2021-10-28-at-17.31.36.png" alt="" class="wp-image-53193" width="339" height="384" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screenshot-2021-10-28-at-17.31.36.png 454w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Screenshot-2021-10-28-at-17.31.36-265x300.png 265w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 339px) 100vw, 339px" /></figure></div>

quotes

FORBES AFRICA 10TH ANNIVERSARY: FROM PAST EDITIONS- Who Said What

It’s hard to determine Sol Kerzner’s net worth due to his complex web of properties, consultancy fees, dividend income, tax havens, and public and private interests. What’s clear is that he’s sitting pretty in retirement.
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His is a story with humble beginnings.
Born in August 1935, in Troyeville, a rough part of Johannesburg, Kerzner was the youngest of four children. A couple of years later, the close family moved to the nearby Bezuidenhout Valley. While in Johannesburg, Kerzner’s parents, who were Lithuanian immigrants, ran a café and he gives credit to his eldest sister for raising him since his parents were busy seven days a week.
Kerzner was not the best student, more of a boxer, preferring sport to books; he is surprised he made it through school without a problem. His father sent him to Damelin College for his last two years of schooling, where there was no sport to distract him.
He went to the University of the Witwatersrand to study accounting, not knowing what else to do. After graduating, he moved to Durban to do his articles at a top firm. His parents had taken up a lease for a 50-room residential hotel in the coastal city. Kerzner convinced his dad to buy another, down the road, that had a liquor license. He would work there at night, while keeping his day job as an accountant. This gave him his first taste of the industry in which he was to make his fortune.
At night, they would change the light bulbs – and the mood – in the dining room, playing some music to create a spot where the revellers and sailors could unwind. It’s a place Kerzner says was far from five-star but definitely interesting.
In 1962, things were going well for Kerzner. He was a junior partner at an auditing firm and was offered a chief financial officer job at a big industrial company. Instead he bought the lease of the Astra Hotel in the backstreets of Durban.
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“I can’t tell you exactly why, I just got the urge to give up the profession [accountancy] and actually get involved in the hotel [business].”
While he was saying his goodbyes, one of his clients, Herald Franckle, asked why he was doing this when his career in auditing was going so well.
“I’m going to build South Africa’s first great hotel,” Kerzner said.
Kerzner had been receiving brochures from holiday destinations like Miami and Hawaii, and looking around Durban he realized South Africa wasn’t in the same league.
“I’ve always had confidence that South Africa should be able to do as well as any other country.”
The Astra Hotel was just a test run to get a feel of things, complete with dinner club and cabaret to draw in a crowd. He ultimately wanted to build in Umhlanga, a few kilometres north of Durban, because he used to take his girlfriends there and thought it was a ‘nice spot’. Trying to get his vision across, and prove he wasn’t crazy, Kerzner drove Franckle to the spot he had in mind and hooked himself an investor.
At the end of 1963, the designs for his big project in Umhlanga were complete and the bulldozers were on site. But Kerzner had never been abroad, so in November he flew to Miami, via New York. After checking in at the hotel, Kerzner asked a cab driver to show him every hotel in Miami Beach. The trip lasted from midday to 2AM the next morning. By lunchtime the following day, he was back on a flight to New York and recalls hearing about John F. Kennedy’s assassination while he was in the elevator. When Americans were weeping, he spent the night in New York looking at hotel lobbies
and restaurants.
He was convinced his designs were as good as what he had seen in the United States. Kerzner recalls articles in the Sunday Times calling him crazy and over capitalized. He was in his twenties and little worried him. His bet paid off and turned out to be exactly what South Africans were waiting for.
In 1964, the 88-room Beverly Hills Hotel, boasting uninterrupted views of the Indian Ocean, became South Africa’s first five-star hotel, with a R1 million price tag at the time.
The Elangeni Hotel in Durban was bigger and attracted a lot more financing since Kerzner now had some credibility. While he was building it, South African Breweries approached him and together they founded one of South Africa’s largest hotel groups, Southern Sun, now Tsogo Sun. Kerzner later founded Sun International.
A casino license was to prove a spur. A concession was up for grabs in Bophuthatswana, an independent homeland of the apartheid regime. Kerzner and his team won the concession with a warning to deliver.
This became Sun City, a renowned resort around 150 kilometers north west of Johannesburg. The four hotels, two Gary Player-designed golf courses, manmade lake, artificial rainforest and entertainment center took about 10 years to complete. When the resort first opened in 1979, the place was so overwhelmed the doors had to be locked. The estimates of 2,000 day visitors were way off with almost 15,000 turning up that first weekend. Kerzner laughs about how he had to come out with a megaphone to turn people away. The 6,000-seater Entertainment Centre opened with Frank Sinatra in 1981, in breach of the cultural boycott imposed on the country.
“He [Sinatra] walked in, he got on stage and he started singing with the orchestra and he stopped after a few bars and said ‘Sol, I’ve played all over the world… I’ve never played in a room with the sound as what you’ve created here, this is the best room I’ve ever worked in.’”
Kerzner sold his stake in Southern Sun in 1983 and a deal to sell out of Sun International was finalized in 1992. He left South Africa for London in 1987 to break into the international market as he felt he had reached the ceiling at home. It was tough because of the negative feeling towards South Africa at the time. Sentiment changed after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990.
Two months after his release, Mandela’s office called Kerzner to discuss a meeting. It took place at Kerzner’s Johannesburg home and was about his relationship with the then president of Bophuthatswana, Kgosi Lucas Manyane Mangope, and Zulu chief, Mangosuthu Buthelezi. Mandela wanted to create a united South Africa and wanted Kerzner’s help.
When Kerzner asked Mandela about his thoughts about the controversies surrounding Sun City, the then future statesman said he thought it was great that a young man was creating thousands of jobs out in the countryside.
The business was not easy. Kerzner had to face bribery allegations. In the late 80s there was a long investigation into an alleged R2 million bribe to Transkei‘s prime minister, George Matanzima, for exclusive gambling rights.
Kerzner soldiered on to build award-winning international ventures that include Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas, the One &amp; Only Resorts and The Palm in Dubai.
The Bahamas adventure began when Kerzner was approached by an investment bank to see if he was interested in American entertainer Merv Griffin’s bankrupt Paradise Island resort. He bought it in 1994 and launched into a major redevelopment and expansion program – demolishing the entire front and creating a nearly 60-hectare aquarium that allows you to walk under the sea. The resort ran throughout the construction with cheaper rates, scaffolding and all.
Paradise Island became Atlantis when the Governor General’s wife came over for tea one afternoon, heard the plans and said it sounded a lot like the lost city of Atlantis.
The response was great and occupancy high. Michael Jackson wanted to see it for himself. His tour of the water habitat ended in a mob of tourists taking pictures and getting autographs, none of which fazed Jackson or his bodyguard.
In 2002, the One &amp; Only Resorts were launched in tourist destinations. In 2009, the $128-million, six-star and seven-story One &amp; Only in Cape Town’s V&amp;A Waterfront opened six months ahead of schedule.
Located on Dubai’s manmade Palm Jumeirah is The Atlantis Palm Dubai, a $1.5–billion and 1,539-room joint venture between Kerzner International Holdings Limited (KIHL) and Istithmar World, a private equity and venture capital arm of Dubai World Corporation. Home to a seven-hectare waterpark and 65,000 marine animals, it survived a fire in its lobby before its $20-million opening. Being the biggest opening the company has ever had, a lot of the money was committed before the global financial crash, so the show went on. It featured impromptu performances from friends like Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Natalie Cole, as well as fireworks by the same company that lit up the Beijing Olympics.
Istithmar bought out Kerzner’s 50% stake in the resort in 2012 and sold it last year to the Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), the emirate’s sovereign wealth fund.
Kerzner historically had no capital and relied on financing and strategy, and as a result his ventures had always been financed conservatively. This policy changed in 2006. His son Howard ‘Butch’ was chief executive officer and told him it was a great time to go private. The markets were great and everyone was doing it. The company was taken private in a reported $4 billion buyout; a $2.6 billion mortgage to finance this came at a most inopportune time.
The global recession led to a decline in leisure travel. The situation in the Bahamas was bad. The group also had to face the threat of competition from Baha Mar, which had found a new financial backer and builder in the Export-Import Bank of China and the China State Construction Engineering Corporation, and was being built less than 10 miles away from Atlantis Paradise Island. Brookfield Asset Management held a small piece of the Kerzner loan, $175 million, and went into debt restructuring talks – converting the debt into equity. Brookfield took ownership of the Atlantis and One &amp; Only Ocean Club in the Bahamas, as well as a 50% stake in the One &amp; Only Palmilla, in Mexico, but KIHL held on to long-term management contracts for
the properties.
In 2006, when Butch died in a helicopter crash in the Dominican Republic, Kerzner took two weeks off to figure out if he would take the helm again. This was in the midst of building phase three of Atlantis. It was work that eventually helped him through that difficult time. It was then that he knew it would never be a family business.
“He was one of the few sons who was able to stand up in terms of talent to a great father, and you don’t see that much in my business,” Donald Trump once told the Los Angeles Times about Butch.
The ICD purchased a significant, yet unspecified, stake in KIHL for an undisclosed amount; Kerzner stepped down as chairman and was replaced by Mohammed Al Shaibani.
There is no question in Kerzner’s mind that there are still some investment opportunities in Africa’s hospitality industry. He believes that Africa has opened up and is a whole new ball game.
Although Kerzner has retired, he’s not ready to sit around and do nothing. He is involved in a joint €790-million bid for Club Med with Andrea Bonomi, a former chairman of Banca Popolare di Milano.
During his career, Kerzner planned to open hotels in Zimbabwe and built Chobe Game Lodge in Botswana. He recalls taking in Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton for what was to be a two-day visit. When Kerzner got back to his friends two weeks later he found out that not only had they not left, but had decided to get married on the banks of the Chobe.
A 50-year career has its fair share of mistakes.
“In business, if you’re going to be successful and do things that are a little out of the ordinary, invariably you’re going to make mistakes.”
He just tries to avoid the very big ones and has had too much fun to do much differently. One missed opportunity was turning down an offer to be the first person to get involved in a gambling operation in Macau. Another big mistake was going private.
“It’s not only all about how much money you would have made and what you would have got. It’s about having a little bit of fun, being able to create things.”
The part of the business that excited Kerzner most was creating it all and watching it come to life. He feels that his intricate involvement in the design process is part of the reason he has succeeded.
When you are this enthused by what you do, it’s hard to balance work and family. Kerzner has been married and divorced four times, has four children and 10 grandchildren. He feels blessed to have the family and friends he has and admits that he perhaps got a little too carried away with his work.
After a quashed unauthorized biography, we can only hope for a sanctioned one giving greater insight into this private yet well-known personality.

Tag: Sol Kerzner

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