Rajen Reddy: A tireless entrepreneur 1962-2021
Rajen Reddy, who has died in Durban at the age of 58, was an obsessive entrepreneur who rented an abandoned petrol station and became one of the country’s leading oil barons.
He started KZN Oils in 1998 after persuading Total to supply him with four drums of oil, which he filled himself and sold to Transnet’s Durban port operation.
Today, KZN Oils plays a key role in the logistics, sales and marketing of petroleumrelated products in SA. Clients include Transnet, Anglo American and De Beers.
A major marketer and distributor of fuel for Chevron/Caltex, it has a fleet of eight tankers, owns or manages 36 service stations, pumps 200Ml of fuel a year and has an annual turnover of more than R2bn.
In addition to KZN Oils, he started a string of other companies including Ko-lay, which supplies flame-grilled chicken to Caltex FreshStop outlets; satellite connectivity and telecommunications company JD Telecom; Champion Health Care, which manufacturers surgical dressings; and a property portfolio of 65 properties including the Howick Falls Hotel.
He housed them in the RR Group, of which he was executive chair.
Reddy was born in Durban on May 9 1962. After matriculating at Clairwood High School, he joined his father’s plumbing business in Howick and later started his own plumbing and construction business in Durban.
While getting supplies one day in 1988, he drove past a Shell service station where they were removing fuel tanks. He made inquiries and was told it was closing down and the site had been expropriated by the local municipality.
It had always been his dream to own a service station, and he begged an unsympathetic municipal official — “I literally grovelled”, he said in an interview — to rent it to him for R1,200, which he had to borrow from his sceptical father-in-law.
For years, getting finance from the banks was mission impossible. He found they didn’t look kindly on people like him who had “passion and dreams” but little by way of a business plan.
He rented out the lubrication bay, workshop and everything else he could to generate enough working capital to run the forecourt
until he’d grown the business enough to take over the whole operation and make it profitable.
His relationship with banks improved, and, in 1996, a banker told him about new opportunities coming up for black business people to supply oil to Durban port through Transnet as part of a government programme to open up the fuel industry.
Reddy freely admitted that without BEE he probably wouldn’t have made it.
He found that the oil selling business was an old boys’ club. “It was very rigid, no red carpet was rolled for people like me. I found it very tough trying to break in there.”
There were high barriers to entry, starting with the extension of credit. Without government support it would have been almost impossible, he said.
The government took some of the business it was doing with the oil majors and channelled it to black empowerment players. A government official accompanied him to his first meeting with oil company executives who were asked to supply a certain volume of their goods in the name of BEE so that he could sell to the Transnet port operations.
“They looked at you with squint eyes because it’s their business and now you’re muscling in, you want a piece of the action,” Reddy said in an interview. “It didn’t go down very well.”
He realised that without a supply deal from one of the fuel majors he would not get the port contract. And without a port contract nobody would supply him. He was sent from pillar to post, even travelling to Johannesburg for the first time in his life to meet an oil company executive.
While trying to organise his first deal he started a stationery business, although he knew nothing about stationery. “It’s amazing what you will do when you want to survive,” he said. His first month’s turnover was R982. His profit was R92.
He was determined to break into the oil supply business and eventually got a call from a port buyer offering him a contract to supply lubricants. With contract in hand, he went to Total, which, in exchange for cash that he had to borrow very quickly, finally agreed to supply him with four barrels’ worth.
That was January 2 1998, a date he never forgot. It was the date he started KZN Oils.
Reddy was obsessive about business. Sleepless nights were part of his life. Luckily, he only needed three or four hours’ sleep. The rest of the time, seven days a week, he ran his businesses.
He said the key to success as an entrepreneur was to understand what you were doing, what you wanted to do, how you wanted to do it, and then follow it through.
There was no excuse not to be on the ground with all your businesses and in touch all the time, he said. His greatest influence was his grandfather, who was an entrepreneur in construction, wood and coal.
As a child, he watched him closely and observed how he insisted on regular and thorough report-backs from those running his businesses. Reddy followed his example. Although he said he didn’t have a ruthless side, he was known to be a hard taskmaster.
“I want things done yesterday, I only demand 110%,” he said.
He was driven by the threat of poverty even after becoming extremely wealthy.
It kept his ego in check and his feet on the ground, he said. It was important for an entrepreneur never to forget that poverty could happen at any time.
Reddy, who died of a heart condition after being in intensive care for a month, is survived by Esay, his wife of 37 years whom he met at school, a daughter and two sons.