Dick Enthoven, who has died at the age of 85 on the family farm 40km outside Gqeberha, was the famously reclusive multibillionaire owner of Hollard Insurance, Spier wine estate and Nando's.
A former United Party MP who was expelled for being too liberal, he helped Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert initiate and fund a groundbreaking meeting between white Afrikaner intellectuals and business leaders and the banned ANC in Dakar in 1987. He attended the meeting, which, to no-one's surprise, earned the ferocious wrath of then president PW Botha.
An under-the-radar philanthropist, art lover and supporter of emerging South African artists whose work he showcased in around 1,300 Nando's outlets in some 21 countries around the world, he was one of South Africa's most unlikely billionaires, worth $1.1bn in 2015, according to Bloomberg.
He was down-to-earth, unassuming, almost obsessive in his aversion to publicity, drove rundown cars, never wore a tie if he could help it and dressed so casually that the curator of a posh art gallery in Italy thought he was a bum and tried to usher him out.
Enthoven, as easily sociable as he was intensely private, chatted to him about art and soon won him over without giving any hint as to his wealth or the fact that he had a collection of Old Masters and a yacht waiting for him in the Adriatic.
He dressed so casually the curator of a posh art gallery in Italy thought he was a bum and tried to usher him out
A few months later he contacted the young curator and asked him to meet him at his London house with a view to becoming his art dealer. Struggling to reconcile this with the dishevelled character he'd tried to eject for lowering the tone of his gallery, the curator agreed but had a friend accompany him in case there was trouble.
When Enthoven fetched him in a car that had clearly seen better days his doubts were reinforced. He decided he was legitimate when he saw Enthoven's impeccably restored 16th-century home in Battersea next to the Thames, decorated with lavish fabrics and priceless art works. He remained his art dealer and curator of his foreign collection to the end.
Enthoven built his success as an investor and businessman on making sound judgments about people, on trust and on extraordinary vision. He saw possibilities years, sometimes decades, before others did.
He bought houses in Brick Lane, London, when it was East End trash. Now it's considered a paradise for foodies and fashionistas.
What he got most spectacularly right was Nando's, which he agreed to back with his capital and business acumen after hitting it off with founders Robbie Brozin and Fernando Duarte in one of their three modest outlets in Johannesburg in 1987 — and being blown away by their Portuguese flame-grilled peri-peri chicken.
In 1992 he bankrolled the establishment of Nando's in the UK and its expansion into one of the country's most popular fast-food chains with more than 450 restaurants.
By 2019 Nando's had more than 900 outlets in the UK, Ireland, Australia, the US, Canada, New Zealand and India among others, and accounted for half his fortune.
Enthoven's idea to use Nando's outlets to showcase contemporary South African art saw it buying more than 22,000 works, making Nando's one of the largest, if not the largest, buyers of SA art in the world.
In 1993 Enthoven bought the rundown Spier wine farm as a renovation project and turned it into one of the country's premier wine estates, a major tourist attraction, model of sustainable farming and sponsor of the Spier Contemporary Art Biennale, which he launched in 2007.
Enthoven was born in Johannesburg in 1937. He matriculated at Michaelhouse in KwaZulu-Natal and went to Stellenbosch University — to play rugby more than anything else. When he was injured he left and went to work for Lloyds in London.
He was the son of Dutch immigrant insurance broker Robert Enthoven, whose small insurance brokerage, which he started in the late 1950s, evolved into Hollard. Dick Enthoven, with his younger brother Patrick, transformed it into the largest privately owned insurance company in South Africa, with businesses on four continents under their management.
Other iconic brands he invested in and helped develop included Auto & General and — in 1999 — &Beyond, which became one of the leading luxury adventure and travel businesses in Africa, South East Asia and Latin America.
In 1999 he moved to Sydney to establish Hollard there and grew it into a leader in the Australian market. He was appointed president and chair of the Insurance Council of Australia in 2017.
When his two-year term ended in 2019 Australia's Daily Mail reported that he had sold his luxury waterfront home in the affluent harbourside Sydney suburb of Point Piper for “a staggering” AUS$21.8m, four years after paying $18m (then R184m) for it.
Described as “a world-class architectural masterpiece” it boasted its own elevator access hidden, appropriately, behind an “unassuming” street entrance.
In 2020, Wits University conferred an honorary doctorate on him for his contributions to business and art.
Enthoven, who died after being ill for a long time with cancer, is survived by his wife Angela and five children.
1937-2022
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.