Allan Greenblo: a story that ended too soon

A Cape Town boy with a Joburger’s drive, Allan Greenblo was a pioneering journalist, editor, and publisher who always landed on his feet. Filled with optimism and ambition, he wasn’t yet done when he died suddenly at the age of 76 on 11 October 2021.

Growing up in the Mother City, Greenblo attended Wynberg and Westerford schools. He studied at the University of Cape Town, where he was a member of the student representative council. He found his calling in financial journalism, where he became editor at Financial Mail. He was with the publication for 11 years before breaking away to co-found Finance Week. Punching above its weight, the publication was a thorn in the side of many.

Carolyn Raphaely, former Finance Week features editor, says, “It’s probably not surprising that Allan had a life-long love affair with bulldogs – he was a bit of a bulldog himself. One of the feistiest, most doggedly determined journalists I’ve ever met, he would gnaw at a story like a dog at a bone until he finally unearthed the truth. Allan was an early corruption-buster, muckraker, and investigative journalist long before investigative journalism became fashionable, and truly understood what it meant to follow the money.

“He was also incredibly supportive of his staff’s attempts to unearth a good story,” she says. “He had an excellent sense of humour, and always managed to extract the best from a small team of eccentric journalists – including his economics editor, a former acrobat, who took regular walks along the fifth floor window ledge of Finance Week’s Rissik Street office. She took pleasure in knocking on his office window to give him a fright, particularly when he was on deadline! I feel immensely grateful for the privilege of working with him and for everything he taught me about tenacity, pursuing the truth, and exposing injustice.”

Greenblo was then appointed the first managing director of BDFM, at the time a joint venture between the Financial Times of London and the local media group now known as Arena Holdings. Once again, he adapted to a new role without missing a beat.

“I had been editor of the Financial Mail since that January,” says columnist Peter Bruce. “I liked Allan immediately, and really enjoyed working with him. He was always encouraging and quick with praise when it was warranted. He made an effort not to interfere, which must have been hard for a journalist turned manager.

“We had only one falling out. I took my wife to a slap-up dinner at the Westcliff Hotel, and we both had the lobster. I tried to expense it based on the fact that I had been working hard for weeks and had barely had time to talk to her. He refused the expense claim, and I think I sulked for a while. But he was, of course, right. He had a big brain and a big heart.”

Business editor Tim Cohen says, “Allan Greenblo was a remarkable force in journalism in South Africa, full of the best kind of contradictions. He was easy-going yet determined; he was full of understanding yet relentlessly quizzical; he was deeply thoughtful yet full of light and fun. In all of these things, he was a rarity not only as a journalist but a person, underpinned not by deep ideological concerns but by a broader humanity and intellectualism.”

In 2005, Greenblo started Today’s Trustee, a quarterly magazine aimed at serving the principal officers and trustees of South African retirement funds. “I knew Allan for more than 15 years, and was always humbled whenever he asked me to contribute to editorial in Today’s Trustee or speak at the many conferences he arranged,” says Teri Solomon.

“Allan was kind, always engaging, a consummate professional, and an absolute gentleman,” she says. “He was, above all, an outstanding financial journalist dedicated to the pursuit of integrity, transparency, and accountability in an often murky industry. He always called it like it was, and never shied away from controversy. Indeed, he tackled some very difficult topics, but he did so head on, with clarity, logic, and just plain common sense.

“Today’s Trustee was his passion,” she says. “The magazine, which went from a printed version to now fully digital, is an indispensable publication for the retirement-fund industry, and an incredible source of information and educational content for trustees, principal officers, and chairpersons like myself. I hope the publication will continue, and by doing so, will continue to honour Allan’s legacy.”

A defining moment in his career was when Greenblo wrote an unauthorised biography of Sol Kerzner to be published by Jonathan Ball in 1997. It was effectively banned by the courts at the last moment. Chief executive at Jonathan Ball Publishers, Eugene Ashton, recalls, “I met Allan more than 20 years ago, in our offices in Denver, Johannesburg, where Jonathan Ball and Allan would be locked in day-long meetings dealing with the intricacies of the Kerzner legal action.

“Allan remained resolute that it was an important book, a book that was, in effect, a study of South African business during apartheid. At the same time he was – much like Jonathan – certain that we should ensure that all legal obstacles were cleared before publication, if that were ever possible. As lockdown hit last year, our conversations became more frequent. There was – and is – a book that should be published. It’s my view that the injunction served to prevent publication wouldn’t stand today. This doesn’t change the fact that there are two court orders against publication.”

On 8 October, Ashton and Greenblo met for breakfast at Teta Mari in Illovo. “We talked about politics, about Churchill, about marriage, the joys of the Kruger Park, and why we stay in South Africa. We also talked Kerzner, picking at the Gordian knot – where to next?” But that question might never be answered with Greenblo’s passing.

Greenblo won Afrox and Sanlam awards for financial journalism; worked as a South African advisor to the FTSE (Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index); and, in 2019, received the Sanlam financial journalism award for lifetime achievement.

Besides his career, he found a passion for Judaism. “About 18 years ago, he started to study every week,” remembers Rabbi David Masinter of Chabad House in Johannesburg. “Every Wednesday, he and Robbie Brozin would have a shiur. He had an insatiable appetite to study and learn. It was a journey, and it led him to put on tefillin every day, and come to shul every week. As a critical thinker, he understood that he may not be able to get all the answers, but he felt that there was something ‘very right’ in his Jewish heritage. He was a fantastic husband to Riana and father to Mia, and he loved his dogs. He wanted to do a lot more to help fix the country.”

Brozin says, “We used to play squash together for about 15 years, and then both our knees gave in, so we started walking. The weekly shiur was an absolute highlight in his life and mine. He kept it going.”

“He was an icon of journalism,” Brozin says. “He was a journalist’s journalist. He really understood how journalism and publishing worked, how to follow a good story. And I think towards the end, he was distraught with the corruption that was happening in South Africa. Yet he always felt positive. He definitely fulfilled his mission in the world.”