The man behind South Africa’s most valuable banking group
Lauritz (Laurie) Dippenaar, Gerrit (GT) Ferreira, and Paul Harris were instrumental in turning a small financial structuring house with only R10,000 in capital into Africa’s most valuable banking group.
Today, FirstRand is a banking giant and the holding company for FNB, one of South Africa’s largest retail banks, and RMB, one of its largest investment banks.
It also owns vehicle and asset financing specialist WesBank alongside asset manager Ashburton and UK specialist bank Aldermore.
Dippenaar and his fellow banking entrepreneurs also used FirstRand to fund the creation of several other financial giants that are no longer part of the group, such as Discovery, OUTsurance, and Momentum.
FirstRand’s founders also made themselves tremendously wealthy, with Forbes estimating Dippenaar’s net worth at $610 million (R11.4 billion).
It was not obvious that Dippenaar, born into a family of medical doctors, would spearhead the formation of a multinational banking group.
However, from an early age, he knew that he did not want to follow in the footsteps of his family members and instead wanted to pursue a career in finance.
After finishing his school career at Hoërskool Menlopark, Dippenaar went on to study at the University of Pretoria (UP).
At university, he was greatly influenced by UP’s chancellor at the time, Dr Anton Rupert, who was the face of Afrikaner capitalism and financial success through the creation of the Rembrandt Group, now Remgro.
Dippenaar attended various lectures by Rupert before graduating with an MCom degree and qualifying as a chartered accountant after completing his articles at KPMG.
Dippenaar’s first job was as an investigating accountant at the Industrial Development Corporation.
Ebbe Dommisse in Fortunes explains that he met Pat Goss there, who introduced him to his future business partner, GT Ferreira.
In 1977, Dippenaar, Ferreira and Goss started a small financial structuring house in Johannesburg called Rand Consolidated Investments (RCI) with only R10,000 of initial capital.
Dippenaar said that the partners did not draw a salary from the company in the first nine months to ensure the maximum amount of capital could be reinvested into the business.
Goss soon stepped down, paving the way for a new partner to join – Paul Harris. Little did Dippenaar and Ferreira know that the heir to the Rupert empire would soon come knocking.

A few years after Harris joined, Johann Rupert proposed a merger between RCI and his Rand Merchant Bank (RMB). Crucially, this gave Dippenaar, Ferreira, and Harris access to a banking licence.
Rupert left the three entrepreneurs to run the bank, which soon became tremendously successful and swallowed up Momentum Life.
The acquisition of Momentum was yet another key moment in becoming an integrated financial services provider. It gave RMB an insurance business and a large pool of capital from the monthly premiums associated with that.
At this point, RMB had so much backing and trust from the established financial sector that it raised R5 billion in a single day to fund its takeover of Southern Life in 1998.
Of the three founding members of FirstRand, Dippenaar was the one who handled the finances and who was the “custodian of values”.
Dippenaar knew that international banks would try to enter the South African market after 1994 and that this would create intense competition, where scale would prove vital. RMB desperately needed a retail banking arm.
When the Southern Life deal came around, RMB ensured that First National Bank (FNB) would be included in the acquisition of the struggling life insurer.
“It is like the goldfish swallowing the whale,” Dippenaar described the transaction. From this takeover, FirstRand was created.
Momentum was the vehicle to affect the merger and subsumed Southern Life and FNB. The company was listed on the JSE in May 1998 under the name FirstRand, with Anglo American holding 20.43% and RMB 25%.
Post-merger events saw Rand Merchant Bank and FNB merge to form FirstRand Bank Limited, with the two units remaining to trade as its divisions.
Dippenaar does not believe in making money in a way that is dishonourable. “If I do not enjoy respect because of the way I make my money, there is no point in it,” he told Dommisse.
Traditional values and innovative ideas are the foundation upon which the FirstRand group was built.
Dippenaar describes traditional values as “doing as your mother taught you”. For him, innovative ideas refer to the creation of a work environment that allows employees to be entrepreneurial and take ownership of the company.
The FirstRand founders understand the importance of putting the business case first and letting the best idea win. This has resulted in its subsidiaries, particularly FNB, regularly being listed as the most innovative bank in South Africa.
Dippenaar said that he likes to consider this innovative culture when evaluating any business to invest in. This principle naturally attracted him to Adrian Gore of Discovery and Willem Roos of OUTsurance.
FirstRand, through Rand Merchant Insurance, was an early and heavy backer of these insurance companies, which have grown to become successful businesses in their own right.
Gore approached Dippenaar for the dormant insurance licence RMB had. After Dippenaar urged Gore to rethink his proposal, Gore returned with his idea for Discovery and health insurance.
Dippenaar gave him an office and paid his salary for three months so that he could draft a business plan. FirstRand invested R10 million in a one-man Discovery.
The company has since grown to be the largest medical aid provider in South Africa.
OUTsurance was formed by Willem Roos and a few colleagues at Aegis, a company under the RMB Holdings umbrella.

Dommisse’s Fortunes also details several meetings the leaders of South Africa’s biggest banks had with the ANC during the era of state capture.
One of the most intense and controversial was a meeting held at the ANC’s offices at Luthuli House without the presence of the Finance Minister or Reserve Bank Governor.
The meeting was intended to ensure the banks would continue to service the accounts of the Guptas and ensure the family would be able to operate in South Africa.
FirstRand and its subsidiaries refused to attend because they viewed it as dishonest and unethical to deal directly with a political party.
Values are more important than rules to Dippenaar because ethical conduct cannot be reduced to ticking good governance boxes.
In a Moneyweb interview, Dippenaar speaks with great regard for Warren Buffet, admiring Buffet’s unwavering dedication to his principles in investing and his simplistic approach to it.
Gore was struck by Dippenaar’s intelligence and strong thoughts about what he needed to build Discovery. He described how Dippenaar has an ability to deeply engage with ideas and evaluate them on their merits.
Dippenaar frequently attends the Davos forum because it gives him a sense of where the world is. “Yes, it is a talk shop, but it is a very educated and well-informed talk shop,” said Dippenaar.
Taking things more slowly in his older age, Dippenaar said that he is enjoying spending time managing his family investments with his son.
Dippenaar also enjoys golf for social interaction. Although he no longer really plays, he said he is lucky that his wife likes to play golf.
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