Author Rian Malan calls him a "stealth bomber of the music industry", and the Financial Times named him "most reclusive" on its alternative rich list of UK billionaires last year. But by all accounts Clive Calder is just a normal bloke who values his privacy.
Born in Johannesburg in 1946, Calder grew up with his mother in a house off Louis Botha Avenue. A bass guitarist and composer, he was also EMI's manager of artists and repertoire in the early 1970s. A colleague who worked with him at EMI, and does not wish to be named, remembers him as being "very focused, very driven". "The amazing thing about Clive was that he had set himself certain goals and always achieved them before the expiry date," he says.
Calder and bookings agency partner Ralph Simon, who now runs the Los Angeles-based new media group Mobile Entertainment Forum, were behind promoting and establishing early 1970s superstars Richard Jon Smith and Lionel Peterson - " coloured" performers in high apartheid SA. The trio was completed by the man who has become one of the world's most successful and sought-after producers, Robert "Mutt" Lange, who later married Shania Twain.
"A big part of Clive's success was the fact that Mutt's production was of such outstanding quality. Mutt followed him to London, and as far as I know they still work together," says the source.
After setting up Clive Calder Productions in 1971, Calder sold it to EMI and emigrated to the UK in 1976.
"I don't know if it had anything to do with the Soweto uprising," says the source, "but there were rumours at the time that he was getting money into the country for the ANC."
In 1976 Simon and Calder set up Zomba Records in London, and five years later the subsidiary Jive Records in New York. Lange's high production standards again contributed to the label's success. Jive became the premiere label in the hip-hop world, signing acts like DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince and KRS-One. Jive would also be home to Britney Spears, 'N Sync, and the Backstreet Boys during their zenith in the 1990s.
Music giant Bertelsmann acquired a 20% minority stake in Zomba in 1996 and, through a cleverly constructed contract, Calder was able to call in a put option in 2002, forcing Bertelsmann to buy out his shares for a hefty £1,23bn in what the Financial Times described as "a fine piece of market timing since he bailed out of a slump not only in the music business but in the career of Britney Spears, its biggest star".
There was some wrangling by Bertelsmann over fair valuation, and the Backstreet Boys even threatened to sue over the neglect they felt they suffered as a result of the buyout. But Calder walked away with the money, and is now rumoured to divide his time between New York, London and his home on that famous tax haven, the Cayman Islands.
He has, however, been spotted recently at the cricket in Johannesburg - he's very interested in sport - and still stays in touch with old friends, specifically Lange, with whom he is associated through Reach Sound.
What most likely takes up his time and attention now, though, is an innovative grant-making philanthropic venture set up in New York in 2005 and in Cape Town in 2006, called Elma Philanthropies. It aims to relieve poverty, advance education and promote health care in Southern Africa.
His and Lange's names were first associated with Elma by The Chronicle of Philanthropy in 2005, based on information from anonymous sources, and the fact that "Reach Sound" is embossed on the door of Elma's New York office. The FM has since learnt that Elma's vice-president for finance and administration, Evan Gould, was a finance executive at Zomba Records, which lends credence to the as-yet-unconfirmed rumour of Calder's involvement.
Whatever he is doing now, says his former colleague, "he's a brilliant guy".
"Where Clive was groundbreaking was in how he looked at the opportunities, and took advantage of them. There were really talented artists who, in those days, wouldn't [otherwise] have got the right type of production and marketing that he gave them."
TOP COMPANIES 2007
