Roland 'Tiny' Rowland dies
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from July 1998.
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Rowland had been suffering from skin cancer and died at the London Clinic, announced the Observer newspaper, which Rowland owned for 13 years, until 1992.
The former head of Lonrho Plc built a personal fortune estimated by the British media at £150 million. ($250 million), owned homes in Britain and Mexico and a yacht in the Mediterranean, the Hansa, where he was vacationing with his family when he became ill last week.
A spokesman for Lonrho Africa, a separate company that holds Lonrho's trading interests in much of Africa, said he died Friday.
A truly international figure, Rowland was born in India of German and Dutch stock and made his reputation as an entrepreneur in Africa after World War II, calling himself a "revolutionary capitalist."
He started by buying two farms in Rhodesia, then branched into mining and in 1963 became chief executive of the money-losing London and Rhodesian Mining and Land Company.
