Business career
Among other positions, he is executive chairman of Shanduka Group, a company he founded. Shanduka Group has investments in the resources sector, energy sector, real estate, banking, insurance, and telecoms (SEACOM). He is also chairman of The Bidvest Group Limited, and MTN. His other non-executive directorships include Macsteel Holdings, Alexander Forbes and Standard Bank. In March 2007 he was appointed Non-Executive joint Chairman of Mondi, a leading international paper and packaging group, when the company demerged from Anglo American plc. In July 2013 he retired from the board of SABMiller plc.
He is one of South Africa's richest men,[62] with an estimated wealth of R6.4 billion ($550 million).[63]
In 2011 Ramaphosa paid for a 20-year master franchise agreement to run 145 McDonald's restaurants in South Africa. Shortly after the 2012 general election, Ramaphosa announced that he was going to disinvest from Shanduka to fulfill his new responsibilities as Deputy President without the possibility of conflict of interest. McDonald's South Africa announced that there would be a process underway to replace Ramaphosa as the current development licensee of the fast food chain operation in South Africa.
In 2014 after becoming Deputy President of South Africa the Register of Members' interests, tabled at parliament, revealed Ramaphosa's wealth. Over and above the more than R76 million Ramaphosa accumulated in company shares, the documents showed that the former trade unionist and businessman owned 30 properties in Johannesburg and two apartments in Cape Town. The register also confirmed Ramaphosa's resignation from Lonmin, a directorship for which he was criticised during the Marikana massacre in 2012.
Farmer
During a visit to Uganda in 2004, Ramaphosa became interested in the Ankole cattle breed. Because of inadequate disease control measures in Uganda, the South African government denied him permission to import any of the breed. Instead, Ramaphosa purchased 43 cows from Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and shipped them to Kenya. There the cows were artificially inseminated, the embryos removed and shipped to South Africa, there transferred to cows and then quarantined for two months. As of August 2017 Ramaphosa had 100 Ankole breeding cows at his Ntaba Nyoni farm in Mpumalanga.[64][65]
In 2017 Ramaphosa co-wrote a book on the breed, Cattle of the Ages, Stories, and Portraits of the Ankole Cattle of Southern Africa.[66]
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