Where did your entrepreneurial journey begin?
I’m an accountant by profession and, like most people in the field, I started in corporate with companies like Sasol and Mercedes-Benz, as well as a stint with Sars. I reached the point where I needed a change and had always found the construction industry fascinating. But the entrepreneurial bug bit when I was growing up in Venda. My father’s always been in business, albeit on a very small scale, but it kept the family going and put us through school. During school holidays, I used to help him distribute vegetables to various markets in our area.
Tell us about the remarkable rise of Makole.
The business started in construction as Makole Property Development and Makole Infrastructure. I launched it in 2002 with a renovation job for a client who wanted to convert his garage into a bedroom with a bathroom and patio. From there, we became a specialist contractor in the construction of residential homes and got involved in major developments of residential estates such as Meyersdaal Crest, Blue Valley Golf Estate and many others. We’ve done just about every type of construction and property development project you can think of, so we’re tried and tested.
You’ve since expanded the business beyond the construction industry. Tell us about the new ventures Makole’s exploring.
We decided to move into a different space because I saw the need to diversify our business. We were mindful of exposing ourselves too much in a market that could become saturated and is vulnerable to the effects of an economic downturn, so I started Black Royalty Minerals, which houses our mining exploration ventures. It’s an end-to-end business, meaning we take a project from greenfields. We do the exploration and progress to the mining right face, and then to the actual mining operations. The Tshilwabusiku Colliery in Bronkhorstspruit is our maiden mining operation, but we also have interests in coalfields in Mpumalanga and the Waterberg, as well as other operations in KwaZulu-Natal.
