Nando’s began in 1987 when Robert Brozin and Fernando Duarte bought a restaurant called Chickenland in Rosettenville, southern Johannesburg, South Africa. They renamed the restaurant Nando’s after Fernando. The restaurant incorporated influences from former Portuguese colonists from Mozambique, many of whom had a settled on the south-eastern side of Johannesburg, after their homeland’s independence in 1975. Since day one, expansion was a vital part of their vision. Growing from a single restaurant in 1987, Nando’s had already expanded to four by 1990. To finance the rapid expansion plans, Nando’s brought in the South African group Hollard as partners. New outlets were kept as a separate company which eventually made decision making inefficient and the implementation of a common strategy all but impossible. This led to Nando’s buying out the joint venture partners in 1995. By this time there were 45 outlets in South Africa and another 17 in other African countries (Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Swaziland).

By early 1997, another 46 outlets had been established in eight countries outside the African continent, including Portugal, Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel and Canada. The majority of these outlets were established by bringing in local partners, mostly by the use of franchising. When exchange controls began to relax in the mid-1990s, Nando’s began to take a direct equity holding in those countries. This was seen as essential to facilitating Nando’s international ambitions and providing ideal support to maintaining the ‘Nando’s Way’ of doing business.

By 1995, Managing this increasingly complex international structure had become very difficult and a new international holding was formed – Nando’s International Holdings (NIH). On 27 April 1997, Nando’s Group Holdings (NGH) – the South African operation – was successfully listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. NIH held 54% of NGH – the remainder being made available to former joint venture partners…