BACKSTORY: Gary Booysen of Rand Swiss

What’s your one top tip for doing a deal?

To be honest, I’m not a fantastic “deal maker”, so take these tips with a pinch of salt. First, find people you trust and want to work with long term. If you work with great people and teams, you’ll soon discover more opportunities. Second, once you know who you’ll be working with, look for an arrangement that vastly improves the situation of both parties. Finally, knowing when to say “no” is more important than knowing when to say “yes”.

What was your first job?

Technically I created my first job. I saw people ringing doorbells and offering to paint the house numbers on the curb for R50 a time. This was in the 1990s when R50 was a bit more than it is today. I borrowed R300 and bought stencils and two tubs of road-marking paint. I’d paid off the R300 loan in the first three hours of knocking on doors and then proceeded to “paint” my way through high school.

How much was your first pay cheque, and how did you spend it?

I suppose it was R450 for the first day’s painting. I’m not exactly sure. The first thing I did was return the borrowed money. If my memory serves, I bought a wooden samurai sword with the balance. I was very young.

What’s the one thing you wish somebody had told you when you were starting out?

If you’re planning on starting a business, get four times the capital you think you’re going to need and forget about taking a holiday (or even a break) for the next five years.  And, if you really care about your business, you’ll probably never be allowed to relax again.

If you could fix only one thing in South Africa, what would it be?

Load-shedding.

What’s the most interesting thing about you that people don’t know?

Maybe that I used to be able to speak Spanish?

What’s the worst investment mistake you’ve made?

When I was in junior school, I exchanged R20 for Z$20, largely because I liked the look of the note. The lesson is that no matter how good something looks, when it comes to investments, intrinsic value is far more important.

What’s the best investment you’ve ever made? And how much of it was due to luck?

The best investment I’ve made was in education. I continued studying after school for way longer than is normal (or probably rational). Eventually, while sitting in a dirty hotel room in Thailand, surrounded by spent pens and crumpled paper prepping for a correspondence economics final, I realised that maybe I’d gone too far. 

What is the hardest life lesson you’ve learnt so far?

Once you’ve lost people you love to a virus like Covid, and almost lost your own life, you quickly learn to prioritise what is important. My lesson was to focus on the people and relationships that matter most.

Something you would tell your younger self that would impress them?

I’d say: “You’re going to be featured in the FM.” And then sweep dust from each of my shoulders. Then I’d tell him to buy Apple stock.

Was there ever a point when you wanted to trade it all in for a different career? And, if so, what would that career be?

Not really, I love what I do. Everyone has good days and bad days in any vocation. The beauty of financial markets is that it allows you to explore a world of ideas, imagine what is possible, but then also requires the far more challenging task of calculating what is probable.