When rich folks cut loose after hours
BY THE time people have made it to the Rich List, they usually have enough minions in place to enjoy a life outside the office spending some of their hard-earned cash.
One distraction many Rich Listers love is horse racing.
It’s great for the sport because no matter how fast racehorses are, they rarely make enough money to pay for their straw.
Lucky for them that Markus Jooste, Bernard Kantor and the Ruperts all take horse racing a long way beyond a “flutter on the ponies”.
Markus Jooste, 24th on the rich list, co-owns Klawervlei, a stud farm in the Western Cape where more than 1 000 horses are said to stand.
He has been reported as saying he runs his horse-racing operation much as he does Steinhoff, the second-biggest furniture retailer in Europe.
Steinhoff grows its own trees, harvests the wood, makes the furniture and retails it. Jooste completes the circle with his horses from breeding to the track — and often back to breeding.
Investec co-founder and managing director Kantor — 102 on the rich list with R310-million in investments — is another Klawervlei shareholder.
He no doubt put his weight behind the bank sponsoring the Investec Derby Festival at Epsom Downs, a big day on the UK racing calender, as well as a number of local races and showjumping events.
Kantor’s horses once won three races on three continents on the same day.
Another thing Jooste and Kantor do outside the office is to sit on the board of Phumelela Gaming, which dominates horse racing and tote betting in South Africa.
In a vote of confidence earlier this year Jooste bought R3.8-million of Phumelela stock, while Kantor bought R4.3-million.
Unlike the horsey set, some Rich Listers actually do their own riding.
Aspen CEO Stephen Saad and his deputy Gus Attridge squeeze into Lycra whenever they can and take to their bikes.
At three and 14 on the list, the two riding home together would give new meaning to cash rolling in.
Aspen, which slipped a little this week after GlaxoSmithKline divested a huge chunk of their ownership, was trading at R256.99.
Saad and Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi hooked up to ride the first 240km Aspen Trans Karoo mountain bike challenge last year and raised R10-million for paediatric care facilities.
As well as cycling, Saad, who played professional rugby in Ireland for a while, is chairman of the Sharks rugby team.
Richemont CEO Johann Rupert is also a rugby fan. His Rembrandt SEE HOW THEY RUN: Adrian Gore, CEO of Discovery, is a fitness fanatic and runs marathons throughout the country Trust, which owns 100% of Remgro — valued at R8.5-billion — sits at number five on the Rich List.
In his personal capacity as Remgro chairman, Rupert is in 27th position with R1.2-billion in investments.
Through Remgro, Rupert is indirectly invested in the MARC Group, which owns, among other things, 50% of the Blue Bulls, 24% of Western Province and 30% of Griffons Rugby.
He also made a failed bid for the Blue Bulls through his stake in BEE investment company Kagiso.
Rupert is a patron of the Laureus Sport for Good campaign which supports hundreds of sports projects in crime-ridden parts of the world.
Golf and wine form other spectacular diversions for the former Richemont CEO through the prestigious Leopard Creek golf course in Mpumalanga and the L’Ormarins wine estate in the Cape.
While running is far more egalitarian than wine farming or horse racing, it is something Adrian Gore, CEO of Discovery, does a lot of.
Gore, who is 12th on the list with R4.2-billion in investments, would probably encourage his customers to follow in his footsteps. Gore is famously fit, having run marathons in Johannesburg, New York, London and Berlin.
Patrice Motsepe, the African Rainbow Minerals boss who sits at number two on the list with R22.5-billion, can move the goalposts wherever he likes. Motsepe is president of football club Mamelodi Sundowns, which he bought in 2004.
His serious financial muscle will no doubt help Trott Moloto secure a top Ghanaian player for the team — Moloto is currently in that country fishing for a star for Downs.
Lakshmi Mittal, down from second position on the rich list to ninth, is also passionate about soccer.
Mittal isn’t South African but appears on the Rich List because of his 52% shareholding in steelmaker ArcelorMittal, worth R6.5-billion.
In 2007 he took 20% of the Barclays Premier League club Queens Park Rangers after his good friends Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula 1 bigwig, and Flavio Briatore, the Italian billionaire playboy and F1 racing bad boy, had bought the club to save it from financial trouble.