Despite running Africa’s largest urban development group, Stephen Jennings is still realistic about the difficulties of working in a challenging environment.
“You’ve got to have the temperament and nerves to fight, because there are extortionists who take advantage of some institutions to drag out court cases,” Jennings recently told the Financial Times.
His comments come after a legal battle with his company Rendeavour’s Kenyan partners had delayed a large development project by three years and illustrated the “significant obstacles to doing business” in the country.
Rendeavour’s development portfolio includes more than 12,000ha in the urban growth trajectories of major cities in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, and Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Taranaki-born entrepreneur helped build one of the biggest Russian investment banks – Renaissance Capital – during the privatisation boom of the 1990s.
Before leaving New Zealand, he was heavily involved in the Rogernomics-era economic liberalisation through roles in the Treasury and private sector.
He then moved to London to work for investment bank CS First Boston when a transfer to Moscow in 1992 landed him in the middle of a project to modernise the Russian economy.
Three years later he launched Renaissance Capital with colleague Boris Jordan.
Jennings turned Renaissance into one of the biggest investment banking players in Russia but sold out to Mikhail Prokhorov’s Onexim Group in November 2012, having earlier sold a half share to Onexim in 2008.
Although he lives in the UK with his wife Yulia on a 105ha farm in Oxfordshire, acquired for £14.65 million in 2008, Jennings has maintained his ties to New Zealand.
The 57-year-old has a waterfront bach in Oakura, just south of New Plymouth, and a house at Awaroa Inlet on the edge of Abel Tasman National Park, acquired for $1.2m in 2006.
Jennings has also continued to take an interest in New Zealand society. Last year his foreword to ACT MP David Seymour's book called the country's housing and education "matters of national shame" for the major political parties.
The year before he identified six areas in dire need of reform during a keynote speech to the NZ Initiative, including the need for a capital gains tax. He has also joined the board of the NZ Initiative.
2018: $1.2 billion