Howard Preece: Brilliant financial journalist
1939-2016
HOWARD Preece, who died on September 7 at the age of 76, was South Africa’s leading business journalist for many years.
He won the first Sanlam award for excellence in financial journalism in 1974 and won it so often thereafter (six times in all) that eventually he stopped entering to give others a chance.
His analyses of economic matters of the day were read at the highest levels of government and business and it was suspected that his ideas influenced policy.
Certainly his opinions were universally respected.
When he interviewed contacts, instead of asking for their views on the matter he had in mind, he’d start by expounding his own views and then asking for their thoughts on his views.
He had extraordinary contacts (among them Reserve Bank governor Gerhard de Kock) in the government and business, which enabled him to break major stories.
One morning in the early 1980s he took a call in his office at the Rand Daily Mail and quickly got up to close the door, a sure sign that it was someone important.
He finished the call then briefed one of his senior journalists, before sending him to the Gencor (then General Mining) annual general meeting.
At the AGM a mammoth tussle for control of the Afrikaner mining house was triggered, pitting Sanlam against Anton Rupert’s Rembrandt.
Thanks to Preece, the Mail broke what was easily one of the biggest business news stories of the decade. It was deeply ironic that a newspaper loathed by the Afrikaner establishment as representing the “Rooi Gevaar” should have broken a story involving an internecine struggle within the Afrikaner Broederbond.
The tip-off from an extremely senior source was a measure of the esteem in which Preece was held in the business community regardless of the politics of the publication he wrote for.
Preece was born in Weston Super Mare in Somerset, England, on September 16 1939.
He was travelling by bus from Cape Town to George some years later when the driver decided to make a detour so that passengers could view an “old” church, built in 1886.
Impatient to get to his destination, Preece objected.
“My good man,” he said, “in my home town of Weston Super Mare there are two churches. The NEW church was built in the 13th century.”
The journey proceeded without the detour.
After school he went to Oxford University and was president of the Oxford Union in 1961.
A goodly number of British prime ministers were presidents of the Oxford Union, as were the likes of former Labour Party leader Michael Foot, Conservative Party leader William Hague and current British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson.
Jeffrey Archer, whom he admired for his vocabulary — which he said matched his own — was a classmate, and US singer and actor Kris Kristofferson was in his college, Merton.
Thirty years later a tutor at Merton said he had no idea who Kristofferson was but remembered Preece fondly.
After leaving Oxford in 1964, instead of the glittering political career that beckoned, Preece decided on journalism. He worked on Fleet Street before moving to South Africa and joining the Rand Daily Mail in 1974.
He was the editor of Business Mail, which pretty much kept the Mail alive.
In 1984 he was appointed editor of a separate business publication that would be inserted into the Mail. It was to be called Business Day.
The first he heard of his appointment was when he was called in to the boardroom and shown a public statement describing his enthusiasm for the project. He was given six weeks to get it up and running.
It came out on time and looked good, but trailed clouds of suspicion and controversy.
The fact that it was called Business Day rather than Business Mail strengthened the suspicion that its purpose was not, as Preece had been led to believe, to save the ailing Mail but to replace it. This proved to be the case when the Mail was closed in 1985 and replaced by Business Day.
Preece, who was devoted to the Mail and poured heart and soul into the project believing it was about saving the Mail, said he’d been sold “a total lie.
Jeffrey Archer, whom he admired for his vocabulary — it matched his own — was a classmate
We [the Mail] never had a chance from the beginning.”
He left South African Associated Newspapers and joined Finance Week, which was founded in 1979, subsequently becoming deputy editor.
In spite of his evidently superior talents and formidable intellect, Preece was no handson editor. He was good at spotting talent and leaving the journalists he’d put his faith in to get on with the job.
His light touch combined with a readiness to support his team to the hilt when necessary and provide guidance when it was sought inspired great loyalty and affection.
He was an eccentric man. He would wander off in the middle of a meeting without excusing himself, either bored with the discussion or just caught up in another world.
His office was invariably a tip, with old papers strewn across the floor and piled high on his desk.
Colleagues would wait for him to go on leave so they could throw them out. He never seemed to miss them.
Sartorial elegance was not a priority. He once left for a function resplendent in a tuxedo, with velskoens and golden paper clips for cuff links.
He was an amusing raconteur. The weekly “Bullring” diary column in Business Mail was mostly his personal collection of anecdotes and sly one-liners, frequently alluding to the escapades of commercial and financial figures.
Preece, who had cancer, married Zelda Beneke in 1979. They were divorced in 1986. He is survived by two stepchildren. — Chris Barron