Dire Wolf broker changes hands in Wiese group sale

For the team at Dire Wolf Financial Services, a specialist insurance broker based in South Africa’s Western Cape, the coming months will mean working under new ownership. The firm spent years building itself into a niche player under the wing of billionaire Christo Wiese’s investment vehicle. Now it is being sold to Price Forbes South Africa, the local arm of a London-based specialty broker.

Price Forbes announced the agreement on Nov. 13. Terms were not disclosed. Dire Wolf has been part of the Titan Ventures portfolio, the family investment group through which Wiese, 85, holds his business stakes.

For Wiese, the sale closes a chapter on one of the smaller holdings in a portfolio that spans some of the most familiar names in South African business. Titan holds his shareholding in Shoprite Holdings Ltd., the retailer he built into Africa’s largest grocery chain. He is also a major shareholder in Brait Plc, the investment company that controls gym chain Virgin Active, which agreed this month to buy Holmes Place’s 13 German clubs for €135 million ($151 million).

The veteran businessman’s own story gives the transaction a particular weight. Wiese later became the biggest shareholder in Steinhoff International, and the retailer’s 2017 accounting scandal wiped out most of his fortune. He has since rebuilt part of it, and Forbes counts him among Africa’s billionaires.

In announcing the sale, Wiese framed the moment around the people who built the business rather than the money changing hands. “South Africa needs more people who are prepared to build businesses,” he said, crediting the Dire Wolf team with creating a specialist firm.

The buyers, meanwhile, see the acquisition as a way to deepen their offering to wealthy South African clients. Price Forbes said the deal adds to its high-net-worth offering in the country, where it is building out specialist lines. The firm traces its roots in South Africa back more than a century and describes itself as the country’s first insurance broker. In May, it launched a construction insurance team in the country, working alongside its London construction unit.

Kenny Thorpe chairs Price Forbes’ South African business, which sits within a much larger international operation. Price Forbes is owned by Ardonagh Specialty and calls itself the largest independent specialty broker in the London market, with about 2,000 staff and more than $7 billion of gross written premium under management.

For the Dire Wolf team, joining that operation means becoming part of a group with far greater scale than the boutique firm they built under Wiese’s ownership. For Wiese, it marks another step in the ongoing reshaping of a portfolio that has defined his decades in South African business, from grocery retail to investment holdings, through boom and near-ruin alike.

Figures in this article were converted at €1 to $1.12.