Jannie Mouton: And then they fired me

opinions until you’re blue in the face, but show me your balance sheet first. In a nutshell: start with about four or five good shares in the long term, diversify your investments across more shares for less risk and forget about short-term speculation. Five or six shares are optimal for diversification, as long as you invest in fairly diverse sect

The group makes significant investments in successful businesses and stands by its entrepreneurs without exception. Jannie’s policy of ultimate empowerment enables entrepreneurs to realise their vision. Ultimate empowerment also means there is no place to hide. It gives you just enough opportunity to engineer your own downfall if you don’t tread ca

The mistake I then made is a classic one. Instead of appointing a single managing director for the bank, I put a committee of four at the helm of the new entity: Botha Schabort, André la Grange, Charles Turner and Hugh Oosthuizen, all of them strong personalities. I thought the four divisions could work together well and with time the best guy woul

The cornerstones are transparency, honesty and sincerity. And every company does have an issue.

The group comprises of more or less three main parts. Under PSG there are the financial giants like PSG Konsult and Capitec, but under the tradename Zeder we have unified all our agricultural companies like Pioneer Foods. Some of the smaller private equity investments like Thembeka that don’t belong elsewhere reside under Paladin.

We had gigantic successes and made excellent profits. The listings of Rand Merchant Bank and Richemont were climaxes, and my children still remember my picture on the front page of Beeld with the listing of Naspers.

To me it seems as if there is a high more or less every ten years. And even if you never wanted to believe your mother: pleasures are like poppies spread.

The assistance to entrepreneurs or management firstly consists of striving to help someone focus on their goals. Directors have to see to it that a business plan is carried out.

Jannie builds around the jockey when he sees a business opportunity, provided of course that it’s a special opportunity in PSG’s field of play. Then the business model is almost the jockey’s prerogative, within bounds of course. Often the model is not the point. Jannie would pick the guy and respect his opinion and say: “You tackle it for us.”