Is Nando's independent? | Highstreett
Is Nando's independent?
No, but not for the reason most people guess. Nando's isn't owned by private equity and it isn't on any stock exchange. It is a privately held multinational chain, more than 1,200 restaurants in around 30 countries, over 400 of them in the UK, and the whole thing is owned by one South African family. Family owned, yes. Independent, no.
This one is worth writing up precisely because it breaks the usual pattern. Most of the chains in this series end at a fund or a foreign corporation. Nando's ends at a family, and it still isn't independent, which tells you something about what independence actually means.
Who actually owns Nando's?
The Enthoven family, one of South Africa's wealthiest business families.
Nando's was founded in Johannesburg in 1987 by Fernando Duarte and Robert Brozin, who tried the peri-peri chicken at a takeaway called Chickenland, bought the place, and renamed it after Fernando's son. The Enthovens came in as backers early on, and the businessman Dick Enthoven ended up owning the company outright. He was a billionaire whose family fortune started in South African insurance, and his portfolio also included Hollard Insurance and the Spier wine estate. When he died in December 2022, ownership passed to his family, held through Yellowwoods, the family's investment company, which is domiciled in Luxembourg.
The UK connection runs through his son. Robby Enthoven has run Nando's in the UK since 1993, when it had two branches in west London, and he is the one who built it into the 400-plus restaurant chain on British high streets today.
Isn't family owned the same as independent?
No, and Nando's is the cleanest example of why.
Independence, the way we define it, is about a business being locally owned and operated: the person who owns it is somewhere near the counter, and the margin you pay stays with them and their town. A chain of 1,200 restaurants across 30 countries fails that test no matter whose name is on the shares. The peri-peri restaurant on your high street sends its margin up to the same group whether you are in Lincoln or Johannesburg.
So when you ask "is it corporate?", Nando's gives you a misleading no. Ask "is it a chain?" and you get the right answer. That is the question we actually verify against.
How did Nando's end up like this?
- Fernando Duarte and Robert Brozin buy a takeaway in Rosettenville, Johannesburg, and Nando's is born.
- The first UK branch opens in Ealing, west London.
- Robby Enthoven takes over the UK business with two branches to his name.
- The UK operation relaunches as order-at-the-counter, served-at-the-table, the format everyone now knows.
- By now the group is owned by Dick Enthoven and family through Yellowwoods, with over 1,000 restaurants worldwide.
- Dick Enthoven dies in December. The family retains ownership. Now. Over 1,200 restaurants in around 30 countries, still private, still the Enthovens'.
So is Nando's independent?
No. It is one of the more interesting "no"s in this series: no private equity, no plc, no faceless fund, a real family that has held it for over thirty years. And still a multinational chain, excluded from Highstreett listings the same way every national chain is, because independence is about where the ownership and the margin live, not whether the owner has a surname or a ticker symbol.
If what you actually want is flame-grilled chicken from somewhere the owner is behind the counter, that is a different search, and it is the one we are built for.
Last verified 28 August 2026. Ownership as reported across company profiles and business press; Nando's is private, so there is no public register of its group shareholding, which is itself part of the story.