Douw steyn biography of barack

South African insurance and business mogul Douw Steyn has passed away but leaves a legacy of good in his wake.

South Africa (04 February 2025) – While Douw Steyn (72) made billions, set up businesses overseas, and had every opportunity to live elsewhere, the mogul chose to invest in his beloved home country of South Africa. Through all of South Africa’s troubles, the Steyn family have stood steadfast in helping South Africa shine.

In remembering his legacy, business and philanthropy go hand-in-hand. It is easy to highlight how much Steyn was worth financially, it’s the worth he saw in supporting projects that uplift, that stands out most today.

Through his business pursuits, organisations like The Steyn City Foundation were established to support the community that lives alongside Steyn’s namesake, Steyn City. The foundation has focused on boosting education within the community, with thousands of school bags and supplies being donated to date. The foundation also hosts food and blanket drives to continue the support within the community.

Steyn shared his wife, Carolyn Steyn’s passion for making a difference, opening their home to the 67 Blankets cause, and turning their parking garage into a storage unit for the thousands of blankets collected for people in need. He shared in Carolyn’s efforts to make 67 Blankets reach as many people as possible, supporting the cause through the Douw Steyn Family Trust and other business subsidiaries. Most of all, celebrating every achievement the charity has accomplished to date.

During the pandemic, Steyn and his various business subsidiaries donated a total of R320 million towards COVID-19 relief and support efforts. The Diepsloot Foundation, founded by the St Mungo’s United Church, was also a beneficiary in 2020, receiving linen donations from the Saxon Hotel to go towards the making of masks for people in need.

The Saxon Hotel is famous in its own right, having once been S

South African billionaire businessman (1952–2025)

Douw Gerbrand Steyn (19 December 1952 – 4 February 2025) was a South African billionaire businessman, the founder of BGL Group, a UK-based insurance and financial services company, and the parent of Comparethemarket.com. Steyn had 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 had 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.

Career

Steyn began his career as a quantity surveyor 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 Comparethemarket.com.

In 2015, Steyn launched the development of a luxury private estate, Steyn City, on a 900-hectare (2,200-acre) site between Fourways and Lanseria in Johannesburg. 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 and death

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 ruled that they were never married, and that a punitive cost order against Botha was warranted.

In Feb

Notoriously private, despite the outward shows of opulence, Douw Steyn, CEO and founder of BGL and Comparethemarket.com, was recently featured in the Sunday Times Rich List and has an estimated net worth of US$2.6bn.

An investor in property as well as the insurance industry, Steyn is also the proprietor of the exclusive Shambala Game Reserve in South Africa’s Limpopo province.

Reports suggest that an incredible 50% of his wealth was accumulated following a highly successful marketing campaign featuring the fictional chief meerkat, Aleksandr Orlov, who coined the phrase, ‘Simples’ and propelled Comparethemarket to the top of the global watch lists.

Early life

Not much has been made public about Steyn’s early life, but details suggest he was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in December 1952, and he attended schools in Linden. Records show that in 1978 he earned his bachelor's degree from Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education.

By 1990, Steyn had left Africa and set up home in Peterborough in the UK. He launched BGL in 1992 -  better known as the Budget Insurance Company that provided financial services and insurance products. 

By 2004, business was booming and several strategic acquisitions and partnerships had been formed. Comparethemarket was registered as a subsidiary company of BGL - although nothing official was released about the entity’s future purpose. 

The following year, BGL reached the one million policies milestone - making it one of the most successful insurance companies in the UK. 

Personal strife

While business success seems to have come easily to Steyn, happiness at home was hard-won. In 2003, Douw met Carolyn Barhuizen - a young, South African actress keen to make her mark in Hollywood. The couple were married for just five months before difficulties in the marriage drove them apart and Barhuizen moved t

Steyn's death was confirmed by Steyn City Properties, the company behind the eponymous luxury golf estate he founded and developed.

The sprawling residential lifestyle estate is located in the northern part of Johannesburg and was designed to "create a self-sustaining community", according to South African online news website Daily Maverick.

"It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of the visionary behind Steyn City," the company said in a statement.

It added that Steyn would be "remembered as an exceptional entrepreneur who built a global business of immense scale across seven countries".

The Nelson Mandela Foundation described the Steyn as a "larger than life character" and "someone Madiba [Mandela] regarded as a friend".

After his release from prison in 1990, Mandela spent six months at Steyn's former home in the affluent Johannesburg suburb, Saxonwold, where he edited his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom.

"He [Steyn] supported Madiba in numerous ways over many years. During 1992 Madiba lived in [Steyn's] home as he navigated his way through a very painful separation from Winnie Madikizela-Mandela."

South Africa's first democratically elected president also turned to Steyn "when he needed spaces for retreat or support for his projects", according to the foundation.

Mandela spent 27 years in prison for campaigning to end white-minority rule.

Eighteen of those years were spent on Robben Island, an island off Cape Town.

Steyn began his entrepreneurial journey in 1975 when he founded Steyn's Insurance Brokers, according to another local news website BusinessLIVE.

This would pave the way for the establishment of one of the country's leading insurance groups, Auto & General, and later BGL Insurance in the UK in the 1990s. BGL is the parent company of popular price co