Daily Mail
London
The man behind the meerkat adverts has splashed out on a £60 million (R830m) London mansion thanks to the fortune he built on the back of the lovable creatures.
The Compare the Market adverts have been making the nation laugh for over three years, but it is relatively unknown that South African-born businessman Douw Steyn has been laughing all the way to the bank, as the campaign has helped him rake in £220m.
The 59-year-old has now used some of his fortune to buy a 10-bedroom mansion for £62m in one of London’s most expensive and exclusive streets, just a stone’s throw from Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich’s home.
He owes much of his success and wealth to the fictional chief meerkat Aleksandr Orlov, who talks in a bizarre fake Russian accent and has made his “Simpiles” catchphrase a national phenomenon. So much so that the word was included in the Collins English Dictionary in 2010.
But it is Steyn who has really seen the benefits as his personal wealth has more than doubled. When the meerkats first hit UK screens back in 2009, the businessman was worth £200m, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. As the campaign grew, his income soared, and in 2010 he was worth £320m, then £360m last year. And now his wealth stands at an estimated £420m.
The cuddly meerkat is such a hit in the UK that it has more than 55 000 followers on Twitter and over 800 000 people have liked his Facebook page, which keeps followers amused with jokey updates.
His personal fortune may have benefited, but so has his company. The Compare the Market comparison site is an offshoot of BGL, which was launched by Steyn in Peterborough in 1992 as an insurance firm.
Since the Meerkat campaign began, the company’s value has more than doubled, from £43m in 2008 to £88m. BGL employs 2 400 people at its Cambridgeshire head office plus offices in Sunderland and Coventry.
The meerkats have also given a shot in the arm to the advertising industry because other firms have tried to copy the campaign’s success.
Steyn, who stepped down as BGL’s non-executive chairman in February, is said to divide his time between London and South Africa, where his interests include the five-star Saxon Hotel in Joburg and a game reserve.
Nelson Mandela is understood to be one of his close friends and his new London mansion used to belong to billionaire Wall Street investment banker Bruce Wasserstein, who died in 2009.
Documents lodged with the Land Registry show that the property was bought this year for £62.75m.
Meanwhile, Aleksandr has been featured in more than a dozen TV adverts, often accompanied by his long-suffering sidekick Sergei.
Spin-off characters were later launched, and the meerkats have achieved the feat of taking on a life of their own beyond the commercials that spawned them.
Much like ITV Digital’s Monkey and Levi’s Flat Eric, Aleksandr is an advertising icon and now a cuddly toy.
Customers who book insurance through comparethemarket.com get one free.
Aleksandr’s autobiography, A Simples Life: The Life And Times of Aleksandr Orlov, had more orders before publication than the life stories of Tony Blair, Cheryl Cole, Russell Brand or Dannii Minogue.
The book tells the story of his ancestors’ journey from the Kalahari to Moscow. Six more books, called Meerkat Tales, followed.