Eric Edelstein

The Sunday Times produced their annual South African Rich List last weekend, and I thought it would be fascinating to see which of the richest have Facebook profiles, how many have set privacy on their Facebook Status’s and how many you can go in and see details of…

I’ve written many times of using Facebook for business intelligence (before meeting a new business contact, before interviewing a potential employee etc) and often it’s easy to find the person, but it might be a challenge when looking for South Africa’s Richest.

However, in the US many well known personalities have created Facebook profiles (or at least someone has created a profile using their name and often their profile pic).

So here from the Sunday Times Richest List is the South African Richest on Facebook List:

1. Lakshmi Mittal - Mittal Steel South Africa

Results: 2 (one with a middle name and I’m not sure if Lakshmi Mittal has the same middle name)

See Profile: No

Number of friends: 1 on one, can’t see friends on the other

Picture: No

Match? No way of seeing

2. Nicky Oppenheimer - Anglo American plc

Results: 1

See Profile: No

Number of friends: 1

Picture: No

Match? No way of seeing

3. Patrice Mosepe - African Rainbow Minerals / Sanlam

NO RESULTS

4. Rembrandt Trust has a stake in Remgro - no individual listed

5. Elephant Consortium who has a stake in Telkom SA Limited - no individual listed

6. Bill Venter - Allied Electronics Corporation / Allied Technologies / Bytes Technology Group

NO MATCHES (although their is a William Venter but no pic)

7. Giovanni Ravazzotti - Ceramic Industries / Italtile

NO RESULTS

8. Ackerman Family who have a stake in Pick n Pay Holdings - no individual listed

9. Bruno Steinhoff - PSG Group / Steinhoff International Holdings

NO RESULTS

10. Laurie Dippenaar - Discovery Holdings / FirstRand / RMB Holdings

NO RESULTS

11. Christo Wiese - Invicta Holdings / Shoprite Holdings / Tradehold

38 Results - None look like a match!

12. GT Ferreira - RMB Holdings

NO RESULTS

13. Stephen Saad - Aspen Pharmacare Holdings

1 RESULT - doesn’t look like a match!

14. Peter Pohlmann - Ellerine Holdings

2 RESULTS - one Peter Pohlmann living on the German Network, and the other Peter Pohlmann with no friends listed - doesn’t look like a match!

15. Abe Krok - Gold Reef Resorts

No RESULTS

16. Phuthuma Nhleko - MTN Group

No RESULTS

17. Elisabeth Bradley - Anglogold Ashanti / Sasol / Standard Bank Group / Tongaat-Hullett Group / Wesco Investments

123 RESULTS - One on the South African Network, able to view profile BUT living in New Zealand - doesn’t look like a match!

18. Bill Lynch - Imperial Holdings

173 RESULTS - none on the South African Network - none look like a match!

19. Adrian Gore - Discovery Holdings

12 RESULTS, one with the same name - but the profile pic doesn’t look anything like Adrian Gore, and the guy is listed on the Washington Network - none look like a match.

20. Tokyo Sexwale - Mvelaphanda Group / Mvelaphanda Resources / Northam Platinum / Trans Hex Group

20 RESULTS - none look like a match!

RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT:

This experiment has been a complete FAILURE - not a single one of the top 20 South African Richest seem to be using Facebook at all!

So if you’re looking to network with the South African richest, Facebook doesn’t look like the answer. Guess none of them have moved over from MySpace yet…