British tycoon consolidates grip on Zimbabwe’s anaemic economy

Source: Zim Online

Date: 15 October 2005

Author: Anon

Harare - British business tycoon and President Robert Mugabe ally, Nicholas van Hoogstraten, has snapped a huge chunk of the Zimbabwe government-owned Rainbow Tourism Group (RTG) to strengthen further his grip on the southern African nation’s sickly economy. According to RTG’s latest shareholder list, van Hoogstraten - who is said to have bankrolled Mugabe’s ruling Zanu PF party on many occasions - now owns 35 727 640 shares of the company to make him the eighth biggest shareholder in the firm that is among Zimbabwe’s top three hotel and tourism operators. Van Hoogstraten, who is represented in RTG by his Messina Investments firm, moved to consolidate his hold on the tourism firm when the largest foreign investors French group, Accor Afrique and Libyan firm, LAAICO, reduced their stake in the group. The British tycoon, whose farm in Zimbabwe has been spared from seizure apparently to thank him for financial support, also holds huge stakes in the country’s agriculture and coal mining sectors.

Van Hoogstraten was in the news a few months ago after he again snapped huge chunks of shares to become the single largest shareholder in NMB Bank Limited and the giant Hwange Colliery. He controls 32 percent of coal producer Hwange and about 20 percent of the upmarket NMB. Earlier this year, he muscled into one of Zimbabwe’s biggest agro-industrial firms, CFI Limited, where he is now the second largest shareholder controlling seven percent of the company. Once heralded as Britain's youngest millionaire, van Hoogstraten has never made any secret of his robust if crude approach to business. He left school at 16, joined the Royal Navy and travelled the world. Just a year later, he sold his astutely acquired stamp collection for £1 000 and embarked on a business career, buying property in the Bahamas. He is believed to have homes in Barbados, St Lucia, Florida, Cannes and Zimbabwe. He has spoken warmly of Mugabe, whom he once described as "100 percent decent and incorruptible". He was born in 1946 in Shoreham, East Sussex, as plain Nicholas Marcel Hoogstraten - the "van" was added later. With the profits he made from his Bahamas property deals, he moved on to the British housing market, buying several properties on his way to becoming a significant player in that country’s property sector.