{"id":857822,"date":"2026-04-21T10:09:55","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T08:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=857822"},"modified":"2026-04-21T10:10:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T08:10:45","slug":"end-of-a-r475-billion-era-for-south-african-billionaire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/857822\/end-of-a-r475-billion-era-for-south-african-billionaire\/","title":{"rendered":"End of an era for South African billionaire"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The\u00a0R475 billion sale<\/a>\u00a0of a business serving chefs and grocery store owners across the US marks the culmination of a tumultuous, seven-decade career for South African billionaire Nathan \u201cNatie\u201d Kirsh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the disposal of Jetro Restaurant Depot LLC, a cash-and-carry food wholesaler, Kirsh is monetising the biggest asset in his family\u2019s globe-spanning empire.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sale to listed food-service giant Sysco Corp., announced late last month, has boosted Kirsh\u2019s net worth by about 50% to R249 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, catapulting him up the ranks of Africa\u2019s richest people.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jetro had talked to potential buyers, including Sysco, over the years, but the right timing and price proved elusive, said a person close to the organisation, who asked not to be named discussing non-public information. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jetro\u2019s board sees CEO Richard Kirschner as the right leader to steer the business under Sysco\u2019s ownership, this person added.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sellers say Jetro\u2019s new owners will help it push into more markets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company \u201calways had a very clear purpose in serving independent restaurants and entrepreneurs,\u201d said Bradley Fried, a longtime adviser to the family and a director at Jetro. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnder Sysco, there\u2019s a chance to do that on an even bigger scale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirsh now ranks third in Africa on Bloomberg\u2019s wealth index, after Nigerian industrial magnate Aliko Dangote and Johann Rupert and family, the South African clan behind the Richemont luxury goods empire. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jetro, which has 166 warehouse-style stores in 35 states, makes up more than 80% of Kirsh\u2019s net worth.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The transaction will also help funnel more funds to Kirsh\u2019s favoured philanthropic programs \u2014 empowering entrepreneurs to make the same kind of ambitious bets that Kirsh did, starting with corn mills in southern Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Pulverized\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Kirsh’s international real estate holdings include Tower 42 in London. [Photo: Shutterstock]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Kirsh, 94, made his first fortune in his native South Africa and neighbouring Swaziland, now known as Eswatini, by producing and distributing food products and chemicals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He later expanded into retail, insurance, and property among other areas, growing the business into South Africa\u2019s third-biggest industrial group by the early 1980s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the middle of that decade, international sanctions aimed at ending South Africa\u2019s apartheid regime had crippled the nation\u2019s economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirsh\u2019s businesses, already struggling from soaring interest rates, faltered, and he agreed to a cash injection from an insurer that came with onerous demands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirsh wound up losing most assets, save Jetro, then a tiny chain of stores on the US East Coast. \u201cI got pulverised,\u201d he told business school students decades later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting over in New York City, he quickly identified food distribution as a headache for the independent grocery stores known as bodegas that occupy countless New York street corners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jetro\u2019s cash-and-carry model won over bodega owners and revenue soared. Kirsh bought a complementary operation, Restaurant Depot, in 1994 to cater to a broader range of independent food businesses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirsh sought capital to grow. Among others, he called on Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Chief Executive Officer Warren Buffett. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 2003, Buffett passed on the opportunity to invest in Jetro. The following year, Jetro found alternative backers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those, Leonard Green & Partners LP, has been an investor since \u2013 an unusually long investment for a private equity firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are private, we are profitable, and we have fun,\u201d Kirsh, who rarely gives interviews,\u00a0told Bloomberg in 2012<\/a>, when he first emerged as a billionaire.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Jetro grew, Kirsh diversified his empire widely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Convinced inflation wasn\u2019t going away, he used cheap borrowing and cash thrown off by his businesses to buy real assets, saying property was the only sector where \u201cstupid people\u201d could make money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His international real estate holdings include Tower 42, London\u2019s first office skyscraper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kirsh is no longer active in day-to-day operations at his businesses. He plans to leave three-quarters of his assets to his three children and the remainder to philanthropy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The family\u2019s charitable Kirsh Foundation is guided by the maxim that begins, \u201cgive a man a fish,\u201d and concentrates on programs that encourage self-sufficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of the family\u2019s signature philanthropic programs support entrepreneurship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Inhlanyelo Fund in Eswatini has made microloans to more than 30,000 recipients, focusing on female and first-time business owners, and Keren Natan gives interest-free loans to new entrepreneurs in Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clients include Jewish, Arab, Christian and Druze borrowers who wouldn\u2019t otherwise have access to funding, according to the person close to Kirsh\u2019s businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Devon Pendleton for Bloomberg News<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0R475 billion sale\u00a0of a business serving chefs and grocery store owners across the US marks the culmination of a tumultuous, seven-decade career for South African billionaire Nathan Kirsh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":857827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9880],"tags":[7267,25237],"class_list":["post-857822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth","tag-bloomberg-billionaires-index","tag-nathan-kirsh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857822"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":857830,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857822\/revisions\/857830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}