Stephen Boler

Stephen Eckersley Boler (23 August 1943 – 1998) was an English entrepreneur who founded a business dynasty and in later life became a conservationist in South Africa.

He was born on 23 August 1943 in Middleton, Heysham, Lancashire.^[1][2] Boler started as a 16-year-old trainee at the multinational Unilever.^[3]

He made his first fortune in the 1970s, selling cut-price tyre and exhaust systems^[4] together with business partner Tom Farmer, who went on to launch the Kwik-Fit chain. One of the trainee managers at the time was Brian Lewis, later founder the High Street buy-and-sell business Cash Generator, who credits Boler with a major impact on his business life.^[5]

He went on to found a kitchen and bathrooms business called Limelight, and made £40 million when he sold it.^[6] Limelight, now known as HomeForm Group, includes household names such as Dolphin Showers, Kitchens Direct, Moben Kitchens and Sharps bedrooms.^[4] Who, in 2011, went into administration and had quotes honoured by brand Wren Kitchens to protect consumer confidence in UK kitchen companies.^[7]

In 1983 he bought Mere Golf and Country Club in Cheshire, handing this over to his son Mark in 1994, when he was 22. Boler had separated from his wife, and his son, whom he sent to the independent school Millfield,^[8] recalls him as teaching lessons of working hard.^[4] Boler was the largest shareholder of Manchester City football club.^[6]

In later life he turned his attention to conservation in South Africa, creating the Tswalu game reserve in the Kalahari Desert. He bought dozens of farms covering more than a thousand square kilometres to create the reserve.^[9] His will specified that Nicky Oppenheimer, the South African entrepreneur, should have first refusal on Tswalu, and the Oppenheimer family now owns and operates it.^[10]

Boler died in 1998 aged 55, after suffering a heart attack in Johannesburg when en route to his game reserve.

References