Douw Gerbrand Steyn (born December 1952), is a South African billionaire businessman, the founder of BGL Group, a UK-based insurance and financial services company, and the parent of

Comparethemarket.com Comparethemarket is a UK price comparison website, founded in 2006, that is part of the BGL Group. The website also offers other on-line companies the ability to provide their customers with a co-branded or white labelled comparison service. ...

. Steyn has links to South African politics, having housed former South African president Nelson Mandela at the Saxon Hotel, Villas & Spa. According to The '' Sunday Times Rich List'' in 2021, Steyn has an estimated net worth of £2.05 billion, an increase of £1.1 billion from 2020.

Early life

Douw Gerbrand Steyn was born in December 1952. He went to school in Linden, Johannesburg. He received a bachelor's degree in 1978 from

Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education The Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (abbreviated as PU for CHE) was a South African university located in Potchefstroom. Instruction was mainly in Afrikaans. In 2004, the university was merged with other institutions to c ...

Career

Steyn began his career as a

quantity surveyor A quantity surveyor (QS) is a construction industry professional with expert knowledge on construction costs and contracts. Qualified professional quantity surveyors are known as Chartered Surveyors (Members and Fellows of RICS) in the UK and Ce ...

at Eskom Mega Watt Park. Steyn founded BGL Group (which was founded as Budget Insurance Company in 1992), a UK-based insurance and financial services company, and the parent of

. In 2015, Steyn launched the development of a luxury private estate, Steyn City, on a site between

Fourways The area referred to as Fourways (which is a collection of suburbs, including the traditional suburb of Fourways) is the fastest-developing commercial and residential hub in Sandton, north of Johannesburg, South Africa. The main access routes to ...

and

Lanseria Lanseria International Airport is a privately owned international airport that is situated north of Randburg and Sandton to the northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. The airport can handle aircraft up to the size of a Boeing 757-300 and th ...

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

. The project initially drew R6.5 billion in investment, with a further R5.5 billion invested in 2019. In April 2020, Steyn pledged R320 million to assist the coronavirus relief efforts in South Africa through the Douw Steyn Family Trust and the companies he founded.

Personal life

Steyn was in a relationship with Donne Botha from 2005 to 2009; and on the basis of an extravagant ceremony in London in 2007, Botha claimed in 2014 that they were married, and began a legal bid for half of his estate. In August 2021, the

Durban High Court The KwaZulu-Natal Division of the High Court of South Africa is a superior court of law with general jurisdiction over the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The main seat of the division is at Pietermaritzburg, while a subordinate local se ...

ruled that they were never married, and that a punitive cost order against Botha was warranted. In February 2013, he married Carolyn Steyn at the Saxon Boutique Hotel, where guests included

Graça Machel Graça Machel (; née Simbine; , born 17 October 1945) is a Mozambican politician and humanitarian. She is the widow of former President of Mozambique Samora Machel (1975–1986) and former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela (1998–20 ...

Timothy Moloi Timothy Moloi (born 15 August 1975) is a South African singer and recording artist. Education Schooled in South Africa, Timothy Moloi went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts degree at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, in the United St ...

, and Michael de Pinna.

References

1952 births South African billionaires Living people South African company founders {{business-bio-stub