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When Sysco announced in late March 2026 that it had agreed to acquire Jetro Restaurant Depot for $29.1 billion, most people in the financial world asked the same question: who is Nathan Kirsh? The answer, it turns out, is one of the most remarkable business stories on the planet. A 94-year-old Lithuanian-descended Jewish businessman who grew up in a small South African city, lost most of his fortune to bad real estate bets, rebuilt everything from a single grocery store in Brooklyn and spent decades operating in near-total obscurity, has emerged as Africa's second richest person with an estimated net worth of $17.1 billion.
He is richer than Johann Rupert. Richer than Abdulsamad Rabiu. Richer than Nicky Oppenheimer. The only African who has more money than Nathan Kirsh right now is Aliko Dangote. And most people have never heard of him. That is, by his own design.
Who is Nathan Kirsh?
Nathan "Natie" Kirsh was born on January 6, 1932, in Potchefstroom, a small city about 90 minutes outside Johannesburg. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. His father worked first as an ostrich-feather salesman before finding his footing in brewing. Growing up in Potchefstroom, Kirsh has said he encountered almost no antisemitism. "It was a very comfortable and good environment to grow up in," he said in an interview with the Museum of the Jewish People. As a teenager, he joined Habonim Dror, the Labour Zionist youth movement, an affiliation that would shape his identity and philanthropy for the rest of his life.
He matriculated from Potchefstroom Boys High School in 1949 and went on to earn a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1952, the same institution to which he would later donate $8.8 million. He also holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Eswatini.
Kirsh is married to Frances Herr. The couple have three children: a son, Philip Kirsh, and two daughters, including Wendy Fisher, who became an artist, philanthropist and international arts patron. He describes Eswatini, where the family has lived since 1960, as his "fourth child."
The first fortune, and losing it
In 1958, Kirsh inherited £1,200 from his father and used it to start a corn milling and malt business in what was then Swaziland. He was 26. The timing was good. The British colonial authorities handed him exclusive control over the corn market, and Kirsh's company was obligated to purchase all corn grown in the territory, becoming its only importer. He built close ties with the monarchy, served as chairman of the country's electricity board for 23 years and helped break down racial segregation in its sporting clubs. His daughter Wendy has recalled that their home in Eswatini was up a hill from a village of mud huts without running water, and that local villagers would come to collect water from the tap in the family's garden.
In 1970, Kirsh returned to South Africa and acquired Moshal Gevisser, a wholesale food distributor with a cash-and-carry pilot operation. At the time, apartheid legislation prevented white business owners from trading in Black townships. Kirsh used Moshal Gevisser to supply goods to Black shopkeepers who were gaining access to new markets under the apartheid system, building it into a dominant food retailer. He expanded into real estate and sold 49% of his South African conglomerate to insurer Sanlam in 1984. Then came the crash. A shopping mall expansion backed by company assets went badly wrong. The South African economic crisis of the 1980s wiped most of his fortune. He was pushed out. He left South Africa permanently in 1986 with little to show for the years of building. What he kept was Jetro, a single cash-and-carry store he had quietly opened in Brooklyn, New York, in June 1976.
The Brooklyn store that became a $29 billion empire
Kirsh had opened that Brooklyn store a decade before his South African collapse. It was, at the time, a small cash-and-carry operation aimed at the kind of customer the big distributors ignored: independent restaurant owners, bodegas, food service operators too small to qualify for wholesale credit accounts or home delivery from the large supply chains.
He focused on what the majors would not: fresh produce, perishable goods, and rock-bottom pricing with no delivery and no credit. You showed up with a business licence, filled your cart and paid. Costco and Sam's Club served everyone. Restaurant Depot and Jetro served the restaurant owner who needed 40 pounds of shrimp at 6am on a Tuesday and could not wait two days for a delivery window.
In 1994, he acquired Restaurant Depot, and the two businesses began operating as sister concepts under Jetro Holdings. The growth was consistent, disciplined and quiet. Kirsh kept the company private, kept the financials to himself and kept hiring. He sold 27% of the company in 2004 to private equity firms CCMP Capital Advisors and Leonard Green and Partners, and later bought back about half of that stake using a $1.4 billion loan. By 2025, Jetro Holdings operated 166 stores across 35 US states, generated $16 billion in revenue, reported $2.1 billion in EBITDA and had posted 30 consecutive years of EBITDA growth, including through the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Warren Buffett tried to get in on it. In 2003, Buffett agreed in principle to buy a minority stake in Jetro Holdings, but the two men could not agree on terms. Buffett walked away. He has not been back.
Kirsh's description of the business model was characteristically pithy: "We are private, we are profitable and we have fun. We just don't scream about what we do."
On real estate: "It is the only sector where stupid people can make money."
Properties and global investments
Beyond Jetro, Kirsh has built a real estate and investment portfolio that spans four continents.
His most prominent property is Tower 42 in London's financial district. Completed in 1980 and originally called the NatWest Tower, it was the first true skyscraper built in the City of London. Kirsh acquired it in December 2011 for £282.5 million in cash, then arranged a 20-year loan from Aviva covering approximately half the acquisition cost. The building houses more than 50 international companies.
In Australia, he holds a 39.6% stake in Abacus Storage King and controls 50% of Abacus Property Group, a Sydney-based real estate investment trust with assets spanning office properties, self-storage and retail. He also owns Birkenhead Point, a shopping centre in Sydney.
He holds property stakes in Western Australia and had investments in residential development near California State University San Marcos. His corporate structure runs through Ki Corporation, a Liberian-domiciled holding company owned by the Eurona Foundation, a trust organised in Liechtenstein, where he serves as co-trustee alongside Prince Michael von Liechtenstein. This structure has attracted scrutiny, as several of his companies are registered in the British Virgin Islands and Liberia, both of which appear on the OECD's tax haven grey list. Kirsh has declined to comment on these arrangements.
He also owned Magal Security Systems, an Israeli company he acquired from Israel Aerospace Industries in the late 1970s and listed on the Nasdaq in 1993. Magal supplied electronic fencing systems, including perimeter security for Buckingham Palace and, more controversially, security infrastructure associated with Israel's West Bank barrier. Kirsh sold his 40% stake in Magal to FIMI in 2014.
Faith, philanthropy and controversies
Kirsh keeps kosher but does not describe himself as religious. His identity, however, has been shaped throughout his life by his Jewish heritage and his Zionist formation. He has been one of the most significant private donors to Jewish and Israeli causes in the world over the past three decades.
Through the Kirsh Foundation, he has provided interest-free loans to more than 700 Jewish and Arab entrepreneurs in Israel since 2008, funded a computer-training programme for yeshiva students, donated $10 million to the Jerusalem Arts Campus, and supported the Britain Israel Research and Academic Exchange Partnership, a joint initiative between the British Council and the British Embassy in Israel.
In Eswatini, his philanthropy has been transformative at a national scale. Between 2001 and 2016, the Kirsh Foundation funded 14,000 small business startups in the country, with a 70% success rate. By 2015, approximately 20,000 people were employed by businesses that the foundation had seeded. His microfinance programme, run in collaboration with Swazi chiefs, provided affordable loans and financial literacy training specifically to Swazi women. He has donated computers to nearly 150 Eswatini high schools. In 2021, he funded IsraAID's Covid-19 vaccine rollout in Eswatini.
His most publicly visible and contested philanthropic initiative is Shine A Light, a campaign founded by the Kirsh family in 2021 following the escalation of violence in Israel and Gaza. The campaign has aired on major US television programmes including Today and Saturday Night Live, and defines certain forms of Israel criticism as antisemitism. It has attracted support from every major Jewish denomination in the United States, including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, but has also drawn criticism from progressive Jewish groups and Palestinian rights advocates who argue that the campaign conflates political criticism with bigotry. Kirsh has declined to discuss the campaign publicly.
His political involvement in South Africa has also attracted attention. He has been reported as a supporter of the Democratic Alliance, one of South Africa's main opposition parties, and has funded minor political operations and legal defences in South Africa that have generated public debate.
The man nobody saw coming
Before March 2026, Kirsh had never appeared on an international wealth ranking with the kind of figure that makes global headlines. He did not seek it. His family office has consistently declined to comment on his net worth. He has given almost no interviews in recent years. He built a $16 billion revenue wholesale business and kept it entirely private for decades.
The Sysco deal changed that. At $17.1 billion, once taxes and regulatory hurdles are accounted for, Nathan Kirsh stands as Africa's second richest person at the age of 94. He got there by serving the restaurant owner with the business licence and the empty cart who showed up at 6am in Brooklyn looking for a deal. He did it quietly, for 50 years. Nobody screamed about it. That was the point.
