Stephen Jennings, the self-described maverick from Taranaki, once said sub-Saharan Africa was “a second once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Following his mouth with his money, Mr Jennings is the founder and majority shareholder of African property group Rendeavour, developer of seven new cities on 12,000ha of land in five countries.
Rendeavour’s debt-free structure is well-suited to such long-term projects – while in Uganda its 120ha Roma Park project in Lusaka, begun in 2010, nears completion, others remain at an early stage.
Progress highlights for this year were at Tatu City in Kenya and Appolonia City in Ghana.
Tatu City, which has doubled in size owing to demand, has opened two schools and has more than 900 students. Big companies such as Unilever and East African coffee grower Dormans have moved into the almost sold out industrial area, while buy-to-build housing plots are 75% sold.
One notable Kiwi visitor to Tatu City last July was fellow NBR Rich Lister Sir William Gallagher, whose company Gallagher Power Fence Systems announced plans to build 24 warehouses at Tatu Industrial Park, as well as an electric security fence around the city’s boundary.
At Appolonia the first school is under construction and the first phase of a middle-income housing development is 85% sold.
Mr Jennings’ co-investors in Rendeavour are Norwegian billionaire Torstein Hagen, founder of Viking Cruises, US hedge fund billionaire Frank Mosier, Midas Capital founder Simon Edwards and former Renaissance Capital executive Hans Jochum Horn, who also served as managing partner of EY in Russia.
Those colleagues are an echo of Mr Jennings’ first once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, when he took part in the rollercoaster ride of Russia’s privatisation boom in the 1990s.
After spending his early career at the New Zealand Treasury he was working for investment bank CS First Boston in London when a transfer to Moscow in 1992 landed him in the middle of a project to modernise the Russian economy.
Three years later he launched his own firm, Renaissance Capital, with CSFB colleague Boris Jordan.
Jennings turned Renaissance into one of the biggest investment banking players in Russia but sold out to Mikhail Prokhorov’s Onexim Group in November 2012, having earlier sold a half share to Onexim in 2008.
Although he lives in the UK with his wife Yulia on a 105ha farm in Oxfordshire, acquired for GBP14.65 million in 2008, Jennings has maintained his ties to New Zealand.
The 57-year-old has a waterfront bach in Oakura, just south of New Plymouth, and a house at Awaroa Inlet on the edge of Abel Tasman National Park, acquired for $1.2m in 2006.