By Alec Hogg
All the world loves a comeback kid. At 55, Ian Kilbride might have lost the second part of that moniker, but he certainly qualifies on the first.
Back in 2002, Kilbride’s dreams appeared to be in tatters after he lost control of and was forced to leave Appleton. Starting from a flat in Camps Bay, he’d spent a decade building that business he into South Africa’s largest company focused on private investors.
Yesterday, the business he started after leaving Appleton pulled off its biggest coup yet by acquiring highly rated Cadiz Asset Management. The deal takes the assets managed by Kilbride’s privately owned Warwick over R30bn. Its medium-term target is R100bn.
Always nice to witness an entrepreneurial success story. Even more so when it happens the second time around. Perhaps because it proves to the rest of us that it’s never too late to be successful.
