News24.com | SA insurance tycoon and Nando's backer Dick Enthoven has died

Dick Enthoven. Photo: Wits/Youtube

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Billionaire SA businessman Dick Enthoven, who played a key role in building businesses like Nando's, Hollard Insurance, Auto and General, Direct Axis, and the Spier Wine Farm, has died at the age of 85 after a battle with cancer.

His father, Robert, a Dutch immigrant, founded a small insurance broker in the 1950s. Hollard emerged as the largest privately-owned insurer in South Africa, and has businesses on four continents, under the management of Dick and his brother Patrick.

In the 1980s, Dick Enthoven invested in insurance start-up, Auto & General and then provided financial backing for Nando's, when it had just three restaurants in Johannesburg. Following fast growth in South Africa, Enthoven opened the Nando's franchise in the UK, and his family held a majority stake in the international businesses.

In 1993, he purchased Spier Wine Farm, which then saw a hotel development, and emerged as a centre for the arts

Enthoven was a great supporter of fine arts, especially of emerging and young South African artists. Nando's owns the world's largest collection of South African art.

In 2015, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated Enthoven's fortune at $1.1 billion.

According to a Wits citation, Enthoven's favourite quote was "the gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application", from the novel Don Quixote.

Enthoven is survived by five children and 14 grandchildren. His son Adrian is chairperson of Hollard, while another son, Robby, heads Nando’s UK.