We’re always fascinated with personal accounts by people well known to us. Especially when they have been through the mill and come out smiling at the other end. So it was for me with reading Magnus Heystek’s account of how he started what is now officially South Africa’s leading boutique financial advisory business.
Magnus started in journalism a few months before I joined The Citizen in 1980 – him then, as now, a larger than life character; me a wide-eyed stripling from a small town in KZN. First a horseracing reporter, when we met he had moved over to the business desk at Die Transvaler whose offices were a floor below ours in the Perskor building in Johannesburg’s Doornfontein – an area that was even more seedy back then.
In the decades since we have broken bread, smashed golf balls, commiserated over personal setbacks, and, once my creation Moneyweb was big enough and he had moved into a more profitable line of work, struck business deals. Magnus is a good friend, possessing the admirable loyalty gene inherited by most Afrikaners.
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What I did not know until reading the piece on Biznews was how much of a struggle he overcame after his first major deal that went pear shaped. I recall hearing a lot about his apparent failings from those erstwhile partners. But Magnus kept such tribulations to himself. Until now. Figuring, perhaps, he needed to first re-establish himself before anyone would believe his side.
Reading Magnus’s story brought to mind those of many entrepreneurs who trudged a similar road. The business world is a hard mistress. Success can easily evade one because of early naivety. If one survives that, the awful twins arrogance and complacency become an entrepreneur’s biggest dangers. Little wonder 80% of all new businesses fail.
But the worst demon of all is having partners who never deserved the trust you afforded them. That is what tripped up Magnus and countless others. Because as Warren Buffett continuously reminds us, in business, trust is the most under-rated, but most valuable asset.
Trust is also a critical ingredient in a national sense. Watching recent developments makes it easy to conclude that SA’s biggest challenge today is overcoming a trust deficit. Depending on where one stands, the default view of organised business is of heartless money grabbers or selfless job creators. And the public sector is full of incompetent deployed cadres or champions of the oppressed. Such caricature aren’t even close to reality. But they persist.
So how does one rebuild the hope and trust so richly embedded into the SA psyche post the miraculous transition of 1994? Like Buffett’s moats – it is done daily, slowly, and in many small, almost imperceptible ways. After the chaotic and destructive Zuma reign, much work lies ahead to rebuild Mandela’s shattered dream of a Rainbow Nation that was a beacon of hope for the world. But it is possible. And it all starts with rebuilding trust.
PS: Don’t miss Nobel Peace Prize winner and former President FW de Klerk offer his vision of South Africa’s future, explaining why the dream of a Rainbow Nation isn’t dead in London, 13 September. As a Premium subscriber you get a discounted ticket price. Click here for more details.
