About - Gary Shayne

Gary Shayne (born 1970) is a South African based investor with extensive experience in identifying investment trends and building large companies via a buy-and-build strategy.

In 2007 Shayne, who is the sole shareholder of the Company, founded Cambridge Capital with approximately R30 million and built the group, with an outstanding team of professionals, to a net equity value in excess of R3 billion by 2017.

Cambridge is an investment holding company using its own funds and partnering with co-investors to finance investments. The Company creates value via a buy-and-build platform strategy, as well as partnering with management teams in order to create value by improving strategic, operational and financial performance.

In 2011 Cambridge Capital, via one of its subsidiary companies and under the leadership of Shayne, founded one of the largest health companies in South Africa selling well-known brands such as Solal, Jungle Vites, Bettaway, Reuterina, and the Scientific Group. With operations in South Africa and Europe the Company’s profits grew to over R1 .3 billion within six years via its various operating divisions being pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals and medical devices. The Company has operations in South Africa and Europe and is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

In 2015 the Cambridge Group founded a consumer goods group based in South Africa spanning from foods to apparel and home care, and now has annual profits of approximately R400 million. The Group sells well known brands including Haagen Daaz ice cream, Natures Valley, Vans shoes, Hurley and Annique cosmetics.

Then, in 2016, the group founded Marlin Brands, a durable consumer brands business selling its product exclusively in Australia through 15,000 stores and generating profits in excess of R300 million/annum.

Later in 2016, the group acquired Krosno, one of the largest manufacturers of wine glasses and tumblers in Central and Eastern Europe.

To date the Cambridge Capital group has successfully acquired over 60 companies with cumulative earnings in excess of R2.5 Billion in Europe, Africa and Australia and raised over R12 billion in funding.

In late 2017, the Cambridge Group contributed an additional R750 million in equity funding to, increase its shareholding in the health group, which by then had been listed on the stock exchange, to just over 30% worth approximately R2.5 billion. However in 2018, numerous risk factors including the China-US trade war, resulted in investors selling out of listed businesses which had higher debt levels than average, including the health group.

To strengthen the Group, Cambridge Capital raised R1.6bn in equity in 2018 for the South African consumer goods company and a further R1.2 billion of equity funding into Marlin Brands in April 2019. In February 2019 it sold its Krosno business at a profit for R800m, having increased its earnings by 30% over 2 years and used those funds to reduce gearing in the group.

Despite its large minority shareholding in the health group, Cambridge only occupied two of the nine board seats, one of which was Shayne, and was unable to influence the board sufficiently to follow Shayne’s advice with regard to debt reduction. The health company’s high gearing at a time when investors were seeking shelter from the China-US trade war resulted in its share price dropping in late 2018. At that point the Cambridge Group, via one of its subsidiaries, held R50m of derivative contracts in the health company which it was forced to sell. Whilst the quantum sold represented less than 4% of Shayne’s net worth a few months earlier, Shayne learned a valuable lesson on how irrational the stock markets may become particularly when there is debt in the company and the dangers of borrowing against listed shares.

When Shayne’s vision for the health group diverged from a number of other board members in early 2019, and in particular with regard to his insistence to reduce the debt in the Company, he subsequently resigned from the company and Shayne has since reduced his shareholding in the health group.

Despite the losses suffered by Shayne from the share backed loans, the businesses that Shayne founded continue to generate substantial profits. Like many entrepreneurs before Shayne that have had financial losses and made it back again, there are valuable lessons that he has learned that has set the foundation for the next group of companies that he is building.

The list of business owners who have taken financial hits and made it even bigger afterwards is long and includes the likes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos (of then zShops), Bill Gates (before starting Microsoft), Lawrence Ellison of Oracle, Peter Thiel of PayPal (who lost 90% of his hedge fund before building back again), Evan Williams of Twitter, Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Colonel Sanders (who’s chicken recipe was rejected over 1,000 times before a restaurant accepted it, and eventually founded KFC when he was 65), Henry Ford (who failed twice leaving him broke before founding todays Ford Motor Corporation when he was 40 and eventually finding success at 45 with the cheap model T Ford), Walt Disney whose first animation company went bankrupt, Sam Walton of Walmart, Milton Hershey of the Hershey chocolate company, and closer to Home in South Africa Natie Kirsh, who lost big when lenders turned against him, and now he’s a multi Dollar Billionaire.

Two key attributes set all of these people on the path to greater success. The first is that they learned valuable lessons out of their experience, and the second is that they never gave up, no matter what obstacles they faced.

Through this experience Shayne has realised that despite the many opportunities to invest in private companies with great growth prospects and investment returns, those opportunities are only available to an “exclusive investment club” being institutional investors. Individuals have never been given the chance to make superior returns on investments in private companies before they list of the stock exchange, yet that is when their growth is at its highest. Shayne believes that the investment space in private companies is facing disruption where individuals will now be given this opportunity.

Shayne has combined all his experience to build his next group of companies which will focus more on equity funded acquisitions rather than debt funded and sharing the upside on these transactions with people that could not get access to the world of investing in private companies before, either because they did not have the financial means to acquire an entire company or the know-how of how to do it and operate the business afterwards. Early signs are looking promising for the new group with two acquisitions closed already in 2021 and a number of others lined up. He believes that the group will be ready for listing within the next two to three years.