South Africa

"Huberte always played a leading role in the receptions hosted in South Africa; the smaller, more intimate gatherings held in their home in Thibault Street as well as the bigger receptions that were mostly held in hotels. She took trouble to make foreign visitors feel at home and to introduce them to the country, its people and traditions. Her menus invariably included typically South African fare and lots of fresh vegetables, salads and fruit. Always health conscious, she did not serve rich, indigestible dishes. The best South African wines were offered. At formal dinners she took great pains over seating, trying to avoid ‘dead spots’ by not putting quiet people together. On occasion guests were provided with cards carrying information about the two people on their right and left, their names, jobs and interests. It gave her great pleasure to see a heterogeneous group of guests with widely divergent tastes and customs ‘”finding” one another and having a wonderful time together’."

"Rupert asked him to investigate the possibility of finding a master brewer in war-shattered Germany who was looking for a future abroad. Steyn set about his inquiries methodically. In 1947 he approached a number of contacts in Germany, asking them if they could put him in touch with: a Munich brewery willing to open a branch in South Africa controlled by South African shareholders; a Munich master brewer willing to emigrate to South Africa with his family and undertake the technical management of a brewery; and a master owner-brewer of a small Munich brewery who would come with his family and all the necessary machinery, to start a new factory from scratch. Despite interest from German brewers, nothing came of these tentative moves as there were problems on the South African side with the realisation of plans to establish a brewery. Steyn was requested to keep the German connection alive for some time, although with the warning that, as a brewery would have to be built up in South Africa from scratch, it would take at least two years before beer could be produced. Meanwhile Rupert concentrated on the tobacco industry."

"Another sceptic was the biggest cigarette manufacturer in Europe, the German Philipp Reemtsma, who had met Jan Rupert in Hamburg in 1950 and was impressed with everything he saw and heard about Rembrandt. When he eventually met Rupert, the two men became firm friends despite initial language difficulties. A World War I pilot himself, Reemtsma had lost three of his sons during World War II. While he suspected that the enterprising young South African would become his main competitor, he asked himself: ‘What would you do for your own son?’ He decided to take Rupert under his wing and helped him in crucial ways."

"Rembrandt’s overseas investments took on a particular pattern. First, the best possible local partners were found and a new company established. In the initial phase and with the launching, advice and assistance were given from South Africa on an ongoing basis. Rembrandt would revitalise the new acquisition. Through cost-cutting and an emphasis on marketing and advertising the business would take off on its own steam. After the local partners had been trained and empowered, however, the Rembrandt Group moved into the background."

"He fully conceded that it might be more efficient to run his business empire from Geneva or some other central location, but felt he had certain responsibilities to South Africa. Responding to a question in this regard, his answer was brief: ‘There’s too much to do in Africa. I feel more needed here.’"

"‘I know of no doctor of law in South Africa who has also been a brilliant advocate, because they sharpen the pencil so excessively that the point snaps off. You study more and more about less and less.’7"

"Sol soaked up every ounce of knowledge that he could from the American. He now had to get back to South Africa and build his mini-Fontainebleau. Even if he did not fully realise it at the time, he had learned far more from Ben Novack than just how to design a resort hotel; he had also seen how to run one. The result was not a 1 000-room beachside hotel in an established resort town but a 72-room replica of the giant Miami hotel, located in an undeveloped village on South Africa’s Natal coast. Sol stopped short of naming his hotel the “Fontainebleau”, which his prospective local clientele would not have understood. Instead, he settled for “The Beverly Hills”. Everyone in South Africa knew what that meant."

"He was not shy to recognise and copy an innovative idea, but he would always find a way to make it better and bigger – and, therefore, completely his own. This was a man who transformed, even invented, the modern hospitality industry in South Africa and went on to build the largest casino resort in the US, the most successful beach resort in the western hemisphere and the most opulent hotel in the Middle East. Sol was indeed the Sun King."

"It quickly became apparent that he was a genius with numbers. On graduating, he was headhunted by Wolpert and Abrahams, one of the largest accounting firms in the country, where he quickly became their prized audit manager and impressed some of South Africa’s leading entrepreneurs. By the age of 26, he had been promoted to junior partner."

"Perhaps even more importantly, Ben was not only the developer and owner of the Fontainebleau. He was also the general manager. He patrolled his kingdom with an eagle eye, criticising his staff when required but also praising and encouraging them. Not a day passed without Ben visiting every corner of his empire, greeting both staff and guests while his all-seeing eyes noted the tiniest of details. Maintaining high standards was, to him, imperative. It was, therefore, not a surprise that he discovered on his rounds a young man from South Africa, a guest at the hotel, who appeared to be asking lots of questions."

"Within days of the grand opening, most people in South Africa had heard of The Beverly Hills. It became an instant “must-see/must-visit” destination, even to the many who could not afford it. “If they can’t afford it, they can fucking dream about it,” Sol would mutter while lighting yet another Peter Stuyvesant."

"Two weeks later, Sol was back at the Carlton Tower to offer me a job as personnel director of Southern Sun. He explained that he had started a fledgling hotel company, but his goal was to develop a chain of resorts across South Africa and beyond. He needed a man who knew where to find – and how to attract – quality hotel management, and he believed that man was me. I was taken aback by the offer. I thanked Sol for his interest but politely explained that I had no intention of leaving my current managerial job and no interest in working in South Africa."

"What was real, however, was the opportunity to establish a chain of resorts of the same quality as Southern Sun somewhere else in the world. The financial performance of the company over its first five years had been outstanding, achieving well over 20% annual compound growth in profits. In the days before the digital era, this rate of growth was unheard of, and it had attracted the attention of investors both in South Africa and abroad. The time was right, it seemed to Sol and Dick Goss, to take Southern Sun abroad. Dick favoured Europe, but Sol had his eye on a bigger prize: the US."

"Solomon Kerzner was born in Durban, South Africa, on 23 August 1935. He was, however, a citizen of the world. He had homes in London and the Chiltern Hills in the UK, the south of France, New York, Johannesburg and the Bahamas, as well as his beloved Leeukoppie estate in Hout Bay, Cape Town."

"How was Sun City able to afford such lavish paycheques for artists and sportsmen? The answer lies in something which I had discovered in the US when negotiating payments to boxers: the US Internal Revenue Service would not recognise tax credits from Bophuthatswana. In their eyes Bop did not exist, as it was part of South Africa, so a Bop tax credit would be treated in the US as a South African tax credit and, according to a tax treaty between the US and South Africa, any tax paid in Bop could be deducted from an individual US taxpayer’s account."