Fun fact: Did you know that Africa didn’t have a self-made black billionaire up until 2008? Surprised, I know. That’s according to the Forbes annual list of billionaires.
Wait. Forbes, really? Were we just hovering over the multi-millionaire mark before then? Or you weren’t just paying attention to our billions?
Honestly, I still think there is a probability that black African dollar-billionaires existed way before 2008.
Anyway, I’m interested in the life story of Africa’s first black self-made billionaire, Patrice Motsepe.
He comes from South Africa. He did not just make himself a billionaire but he set the path for other people to believe they could make it to the billionaire title.
Indeed, many black Africans, including Aliko Dangote and Abdul Samad Rabiu, have followed suit in making Forbes’ post-2008 list of dollar-billionaires in Africa.
Early life and education
Patrice Motsepe was born in 1962, the year Nelson Mandela started serving his 27-year prison sentence, during South Africa’s apartheid era.
He wasn’t born into a rich family but his father held a chief position for the Tswana people. His father later started a Spaza shop (small convenience store) which was popular with mine workers.
He used to spend most of his free time from school helping his father at the shop and interacting a lot with mine workers.
He therefore started gaining insights into mining and business at an early age. He claims that being in the shop expanded his mind about businesses and entrepreneurship.
He attended a private catholic boarding school before proceeding to the University of Swaziland where he studied for a Bachelor of Arts Degree.
A career in Law
Motsepe later went to the University of Witwatersrand and studied Law, majoring in mining and business law.
After his law degree, he joined one of the most prestigious law firms in South Africa, Bowman Gilfillan in 1988, being one of the few black lawyers to make it to the then predominantly white law firm.
In 1994, when the man who went to prison in the year of his birth was elected as the first black South African president, Patrice Motsepe became the first black partner at Bowman and Gilfillan Law Firm.
Mining
While working with this fancy law firm, Motsepe gained insights into big business dealings, especially in the mining sector which was entirely controlled by white folks at the time.
When South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) laws that required companies to be at least 26% black-owned to get government mining licenses were passed, Motsepe jumped right at that opportunity, forming his first mining company, Future Mining.
Patrice Motsepe leveraged his networks, industry experience, and political goodwill to buy low-producing mines on the ‘cheap’ from AngloGold at a time when prices in the gold markets had slumped and many white-owned mining companies faced uncertainties on how the newly elected black government will pan out.
In 1997, he expanded Future Mining and formed the African Rainbow Minerals (ARM). ARM did not focus on gold mining only but on cobalt, nickel, iron ore, copper, and coal.
They say Africa is rich, and I couldn’t agree any less. If all these have been mined in Africa for centuries and they are still being mined in 2024! How rich and blessed are we?
For once I agree with people who say the richest continent in terms of natural resources is Africa!
All you have to do is secure the right spot, wing the right connections and partners, and who knows, Forbes may be looking for you soon, ha ha.
Anyway, in 2003, he merged ARM with Harmony Mining Company, another mining company in South Africa.
Together, they came up with the ARMgold Mining Company which became one of the biggest black-owned companies in South Africa, with an expanded capacity that not only mines raw minerals but also processes them for the insatiable global demand.
Football and Politics
In 2004, Patrice bought a whole football club. He purchased 51% interest in Mamelodi Sundown Football Club. This was a move that he made to satisfy his love for the game from an early age and to nurture talent among South Africa’s largely poor youth.
His investment and leadership have seen Mamelodi Sundown win a record 10 titles in the South African Premier League.
In 2020, Patrice announced his bid for the President of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and proceeded to win a four-year term (unopposed) during the 43rd CAF General Assembly in Rabat, Morocco.
As I write this, the 10th CAF president is presiding over the ongoing African Cup of Nations in Cameroon. Matter of fact, I’m set for the Ivory Coast vs Senegal match in just a short while. My money is on Senegal, you bet.
Outside CAF and FIFA politics, Motsepe has tried to disassociate himself from his country’s politics and openly avoids expressing his opinion on South Africa’s political issues, despite his family being a sort of political dynasty in the ruling party, ANC.
His older sister, Tsepho Motsepe is the current (year 2024) first lady; married to the president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa.
Another sister, Bridgette Motsepe, a powerhouse in South Africa’s mining industry is married to Jeff Radebe, an ANC bigshot who served, continuously, as a cabinet minister in all of South Africa’s black governments.
Jeff Radebe held different ministerial dockets in the cabinets of Presidents; Nelson Mandela, Thambo Mbeki, Jacob Zuma, and even that of his brother-in-law, Cyril Ramaphosa.
Business Empire
Anyway, back to billionaire Patrice Motsepe. I don’t know what it feels to hold the title of the first black self-made African billionaire, but Motsepe does.
Through his investment vehicles; African Rainbow Capital and Ubuntu Botha Investments, Patrice Motsepe has stakes in African Rainbow Mining, African Rainbow Energy and Power, TymeBank, Sanlam, and a sports enterprise among many companies mainly in South Africa’s financial, Insurance, Banking, Telecommunications and IT sectors.
As of February 2024, Forbes rank Patrice Motsepe at number 9 in Africa with a net worth of $2.7 billion.
For 16 years, he has ranked among Forbes’s richest Africans and reinforced our hopes that it is possible.
