Eswatini billionaire Natie Kirsh builds giant New York family office after $29 billion deal

The family of Swazi-South African billionaire Nathan "Natie" Kirsh is building what is expected to be one of the largest family offices created in recent years, after the 94-year-old agreed to sell his restaurant supply business, Jetro Restaurant Depot, for $29 billion including debt.

Representatives for the family have been interviewing candidates for chief investment officer, investment committee members and advisers as they prepare to manage the money from the sale, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The family, which includes Kirsh and his three children and their families, has also begun searching for a head of private investments and a head of public investments.

The Journal described the hiring as being for the family's existing office in New York, sometimes called Kifo. The Kirsh Family Office is a single-family office headquartered in London, according to family office database Altss. It oversees Kirsh's holdings in food distribution, property and private equity, with a mandate to preserve the family's wealth across generations while pursuing opportunistic growth.

The $29 billion sale

Sysco agreed in March to buy Jetro Restaurant Depot for $29.1 billion including debt. Jetro shareholders will receive $21.6 billion in cash and 91.5 million Sysco shares, which works out to about 16% of the combined company. The deal is expected to close before Sysco's fiscal year ends in March 2027.

Kirsh's family owns most of the business. Before the deal, he held about 75% of Jetro Holdings, according to Bloomberg, which made the company the source of most of his wealth. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index valued him at $15.1 billion in August, up more than $5 billion this year.

Jetro works like a Costco for 725,000 smaller restaurant owners and food-service operators. It runs 166 warehouse stores across 35 US states and generated about $16 billion in revenue in 2025. Sysco will keep it as a standalone division, with its management team staying in place under President Richard Kirschner.

A family office is a private firm that manages the investments and affairs of a single wealthy family, and most are run by small teams. The Kirsh family's plan to hire a chief investment officer, an investment committee and separate heads of public and private markets points to something closer to an institutional investor, one built to put billions of dollars in cash to work in a short period.

From a corn mill in Swaziland

Kirsh was born on Jan. 6, 1932, to Jewish parents who had immigrated to South Africa, and grew up in Potchefstroom, about 120 kilometers southwest of Johannesburg, where his family ran a malt business. He started out with a £1,200 inheritance, which he used to set up a corn milling and malt business in Swaziland, now Eswatini.

The business grew into a conglomerate. Kirsh also spent 23 years as chairman of Swaziland's electricity board, helping build the country's power grid, and he has called Eswatini his fourth child. He lives in Ezulwini and holds Swazi citizenship, along with residency in Britain and the United States. He is widely described as Eswatini's richest man.

He moved into the US market in 1976, founding Jetro Cash & Carry after arriving in New York and opening a single warehouse in Brooklyn. He added the Restaurant Depot concept in 1994, targeting small shops and independent restaurants that the big distributors were unwilling to serve. He kept the business private for five decades, selling a 27% stake to private equity firms CCMP and Leonard Green in 2004 but never listing it.

Property on four continents

Food distribution made Kirsh a billionaire, but property has been his second business for decades, and the family office will start with a sizable real estate portfolio already in place.

Through Ki Corporation, Kirsh holds 50% of Sydney-listed Abacus Property Group and 39.6% of Abacus Storage King, an Australian self-storage operator. In 2025, Ki Corporation teamed up with US-based Public Storage in a renewed push to acquire Abacus Storage King outright. The family also owns Birkenhead Point, a shopping center and marina in Sydney, and Jandakot Airport in Perth.

In London, Kirsh bought Tower 42, the city's first office skyscraper, in December 2011, then spent about £50 million renovating the tower and five neighboring buildings that came with the deal. Bloomberg has valued the building at about $364 million. The Kirsh Group, the family's holding company, also retains retail and property interests in Eswatini, where it owns half of Swazi Plaza Properties, and has investments in Israel.

What comes next

The new team will inherit a portfolio that was dominated by a single private company and will soon be heavy in cash and Sysco stock. Diversifying that wealth across public markets, private equity and property is the job the family is now hiring for.

Kirsh has long avoided publicity. He is married to Frances Herr, and the couple has three children, including a son, Philip. Kirsh received an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II in 2019 and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Swaziland.