I was born in August 1944 and come from an ancestry of bookmakers-turned steel manufacturers. My paternal grandfather walked into Rhodesia from Beira in about 1896, looking for work. He owned racehorses in Mutare and the Trading Store and Hotel in Odzi, before moving to Salisbury in 1910.
There, on 200 acres alongside the Mutoko Road in Glen Lorne, he built a stone house, which he called Rumbavu Park, where my father was born in 1918. After World War II, my father became a prominent grain trader, store owner and farmer in Macheke, Murewa district, where I grew up.
After school at Ruzawi and Peterhouse in Marondera, I obtained an MA in Law at Cambridge University and then took a second Law degree from the University of Witwatersrand, whilst serving attorney’s articles in Johannesburg.
I came back to my roots in Murewa in 1969 to help my father’s storekeeping business to survive some hard times. I never left it! In a career spanning seven decades, I have built several trading businesses, retail and wholesale, rural and urban, as well as conducting other activities, mainly racehorse breeding and property development.
My early years as a storekeeper were spent where I grew up. I built 32 trading stores both wholesale and retail — from Macheke Murewa to Pfungwe Maramba, from Mutoko to Mukarakate, from Virginia to Rusape and Marondera, and the first independent milling company in Murewa.
All of these I ran, with my younger brother, until the ravages of the liberation war between 1975 and 1979, largely destroyed our stores and forced our relocation to Harare in 1979. In those years, I was also a prominent grain trader as agent for the Grain Marketing Board.
Keep Reading
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Arriving in Harare in 1979, about a year before Independence, I set about reconstructing the business, still in partnership with my bother, David. The decade of the 1980s saw the regrowth and success of both our rural and urban trading and also the birth of Metro Peech Wholesalers, a Harare extension of the original P Peech and Sons Wholesalers, which I had founded in Murewa in 1970. We continued to expand steadily, becoming an household name.
The ZNCC awarded me Businessman of the Year in 1986. And then in 1994, I obtained sole franchises for Zimbabwe from both Woolworths (South Africa) and Makro (SA). The construction of our five large franchise stores in both Harare and Bulawayo, between 1995 and 1998, under the names “W STORE” and “METRO MAKRO”, took us to a new level of success. In this process, we greatly reduced Metro Peech to make way for the new franchises.
Twenty years of solid trading was interrupted by two events. First, in January 1990, I decided to construct three high-rise blocks of top-end apartments overlooking the Harare Sports Club (Northfields) and a Cluster Home Development (Kew Gardens) on Kew Drive. Both were on self-owned land. These were and remain beautiful and respected developments.
But the first devaluation crisis in 1991 caused financial distress. Secondly, on Black Friday in November 1997, the massive Zimbabwean dollar devaluation (times four) shook our Woolworths and Makro stores, which had been foreign financed and which relied on imported goods. Ultimately, between 2005 and 2008, massive inflation, price control and regulatory measures on currency, forced their closure.
After more than 30 years, my career as a storekeeper gradually ground to a halt. However, I had managed during this time to develop and sustain other enterprises. Most importantly, in 1980, I bought back Rumbavu Park, where my father was born. This had gone out of the family 50 years earlier, after the 1929 New York Wall Street Crash, in which my grandfather lost his inherited fortune.
Here, I developed a successful thoroughbred breeding stud, which over a period of 40 years has produced more than 500 racehorses for both the local and export markets and has won for us numerous individual and corporate racing and breeding awards and championships. In this, my wife Noelene, herself for 25 years a leading racehorse trainer, has partnered me and we still live here and breed racehorses.
I had also over the years developed or become involved in other ventures:
l College Press Publishers (MacMillan Zimbabwe). Shareholder from 1984 to 2001.
l Contracting in the Democratic Republic of Congo (2000-2003)
l Woolworths (SA), Maputo. A franchise for my Mozambique Trading Company (2002-2005)
l Green Park Vegetable Producers (Rumbavu Park) (2005-2008).
l Glenwood Racing Yard in Natal, operated by my wife 2002-2004.
All these ventures were successful supplementary sources of income during difficult times.
For a great part of my life, in addition to those of my own companies, I have served on many corporate boards and committees.
l Zimbabwe Pony Club (chairman, 1980-1985).
l Zimbabwe Amateur Racing Association (ZARA) (chairman 1982-1987).
l Mashonaland Owners and Trainers Association (1985-1988).
l Thoroughbred Breeders Association of Zimbabwe (chairman, 2000-2007).
l Mashonaland Turf Club (Steward, between 1988 to 2018 and chairman, 2015-2018).
l The Harare Club (chairman during centenary 1993-1996).
l Truworths Limited Zimbabwe (chairman, 1997-2017).
l Metro Peech and Browne Wholesalers (chairman, 2010-2022)
Since 2009, when my 40 trading years substantially ended, I have been fully engaged in new ventures. Firstly, when the Thoroughbred Breeding Industry declined and collapsed as a result of land redistribution, I gradually converted (2012-2022) the Rumbavu Park Stud Stables into human accommodation. This created the prominent, prestigious and increasingly popular Peech Boutique Hotel. Surrounding it, Rumbavu Park Stud still operates although on a greatly reduced scale.
Secondly, together with a partner, I am constructing a fully-authorised and permitted, state-of-the-art burial park (80 000 graves) near Chitungwiza.
Thirdly, I am safeguarding the Gletwyn Dam, which I built on my Rumbavu Park property in 1995. This is to protect this unique urban Waterfront Sanctuary as a Private Venture Trust of unparalleled beauty.
My working life continues at full pace. I have been part of the Celebration Church in Borrowdale for many years. My wife and I live at Rumbavu Park and have four children and 11 grandchildren.
I thank God, by whose Grace I have run the race to the best of my ability, for continuing to encourage me to see a bright and righteous future, in His Kingdom, both for my own ventures and for my beloved country.