From Rock Bottom To Rolling In Cash

How do you go from a picked-clean house and empty bank accounts to a BMW sports car? Just ask Itumeleng Mpatlanyana.

- Melitta Ngalonkulu

He appears to be soft-hearted behind his infectious smile, but this is a steely franchise mogul who has survived being stripped of all his assets.

On a gloomy day, as gloomy as his worst day, we arrive in Mamelodi, Pretoria, South Africa’s capital, to meet Itumeleng Mpatlanyana.

At the corner of Shabangu and Maake Street in Mamelodi West, is a shisa nyama (township braai restaurant) made with a shipping container painted shocking red. This is Nkukhu-Box, one of his many businesses.

The atmosphere is vibrant. There is deafening house music playing at the restaurant – we had to ask people to turn it down. The street buzzes with taxis and hooting cars.

Finally, 40 minutes late, a white BMW sports car pulls up. It looks out of place, as well as tardy.

A short and soft-spoken gentleman, in a white shirt, emerges. Mpatlanyana, the food man, is ready to speak about his worst day.

For someone seen as successful, it comes as a surprise that seven years ago Mpatlanyana found himself sitting on the floor of his near empty house. The only thing he was able to save from the repossessors was a painting on the wall.

“There was one painting that I bought when I was a student. I actually begged the guys not to take it and I still have it today,” he says.

“It is a happy colorful painting. When you look at that painting in the mornings, it gives new life and meaning.

So that is why I begged the guys not to take it. They took everything, but that painting was the only survivor that day.”

This was how bankruptcy felt.

It all began when he was 14 years old, growing up in the township of Embalenhle, in Mpumalanga. He had started a lawn-mowing business in his neighborhood at weekends. His motivation was money for a nice packed lunch.