They broke the mould when making PSG founder Jannie Mouton. Now 70, he came up the hard way, this kid from tiny Carnarvon in the Northern Cape for whom English was a very foreign language. And after reaching the top of the stockbroking pyramid, got fired by his partners.
That shock, just months before Mouton’s 50th birthday, turned out to be the spark that created wealth of almost R200bn. Twenty years on, his PSG is worth a chunky R60bn – and has been the catalyst in creating banking disruptor Capitec (worth R103bn) and education cage-rattler Curro (R18bn).
Now Mouton, whom I dubbed the “Boere Buffett” on radio some years ago, is proving his independence once more by giving it all away. This week he quietly moved the first R1bn worth of his PSG shares into a charitable trust, and as he told me yesterday (the interview is on Biznews), this transfer is only the start.
Jannie says he is following the example of his hero Warren Buffett, whose Giving Pledge has inspired dozens of billionaires worldwide to adopt aggressive philanthropy. Mouton says he saw Buffett smiling when a TV interviewer asked him about his decision to give away 99% of his money. He reflected on why. And the rest is history. Amazing how much good can be done by one man with the right intention.
