Pieter du ToitThe Stellenbosch Mafia - Inside the Billionaires’ Club & The ANC Billionaires Bundle

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Stellenbosch Mafia: Inside the Billionaires' Club 

About 50km outside of Cape Town lies the beautiful town of Stellenbosch, nestled against vineyards and blue mountains that stretch to the sky. Here reside some of South Africa’s wealthiest individuals: all male, all Afrikaans – and all stinking rich. Johann Rupert, Jannie Mouton, Markus Jooste and Christo Wiese, to name a few.

Julius Malema refers to them scathingly as ‘The Stellenbosch Mafia’, the very worst example of white monopoly capital. But who really are these mega-wealthy individuals, and what influence do they exert not only on Stellenbosch but more broadly on South African society?

Author Pieter du Toit begins by exploring the roots of Stellenbosch, one of the wealthiest towns in South Africa and arguably the cradle of Afrikanerdom. This is the birthplace of apartheid leaders, intellectuals, newspaper empires and more.

He then closely examines this ‘club’ of billionaires. Who are they and, crucially, how are they connected? What network of boardroom membership, alliances and family connections exist? Who are the ‘old guard’ and who are the ‘inkommers’, and what about the youngsters desperate to make their mark? He looks at the collapse of Steinhoff: what went wrong, and whether there are other companies at risk of a similar fate. He examines these men's control over cultural life, including pulling the strings in South Africa rugby.

The ANC Billionaires - Big Capital's Gambit And The Rise Of The Few

In 1985, a group of white South African business leaders, led by Gavin Relly, the executive chairperson of Anglo American, traveled to a game lodge in Zambia to meet with the exiled ANC leadership under Oliver Tambo and Thabo Mbeki. This visit set in motion a coordinated and well-resourced plan by big businesses to influence and direct political change in South Africa.
In The ANC Billionaires, top-selling author Pieter du Toit draws on first-hand accounts by major roleplayers about the contentious relationship between capital and the ANC before, during and after the country’s transition to democracy, and shows how the liberation organization was completely unprepared to navigate the intersection between business and politics.

He also ties the rise of the new elite – including Cyril Ramaphosa, Patrice Motsepe, and Saki Macozoma – to the ANC, a party of government and patronage.

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