Kenton Fine: bunch of ‘SA boikies’ get stuck into €200m global services business

Kenton Fine is the London-based executive chairman and founder of Servest, a R10bn turnover, 45,000 employee multinational group. Fine sold Servest for a whopping £540m in 2018 and announced last week that a group of South Africans are getting together to buy Getronics – a Dutch IT services company – for €200m. On the point that this is the only substantial acquisition that has taken place since Covid-19 hit, Fine says that he is perhaps, within his makeup, a little bit of an 'against the grain' sort of guy. A self-proclaimed 'services guy', Fine says that having been out of the frontline for two years, he was perhaps getting itchy feet in terms of operational involvement and was relishing the opportunity to jump in here – leading from the front with team members Mike Field going in as CFO and Andre Ribbens going in as the chief transformation officer. Fine, who left South Africa for the UK  in 2007, feels like he never left and that South Africa is ultimately still his heart and home.  It may, therefore, come as no surprise that – even in these Covid-times – Fine has teamed up with two other 'Durban lads' and a Pretoria boy as 'a bunch of 'SA boikies' getting stuck into this €200 euro global services business with estimated annual revenues of €300m. – Nadya Swart 

Well, I was due to speak with Kenton Fine. We seem to do this every two years or so, but today you have got a very big announcement. A group of South Africans are getting together to buy a Dutch IT services company for 200 million euros. It's called Getronics. Not a business that would have registered in South Africa yet, although – does it have an operation here? 

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