He started his company as a one-man band, and today Auction Alliance employs 120 people and has a turnover close to R1 billion.

He has seen the industry undergo dramatic changes from a "bankruptcy, death and despair" industry to one where selling assets at market value is the norm.

His guiding philosophy in life is to make a difference, to live life with integrity and with a bit of passion.

What are the core activities of Auction Alliance?

Well, it's asset sales. Ninety percent of our business is selling a wide range of assets. Ten percent is actually valuations and other asset management services.

What is the quirkiest asset you ever had to auction?

Recently we sold a couple of million condoms, which was quite quirky because try to find one person who could use 5 million condoms. Another time we sold a buffalo sperm bank.

Is the business profitable and, if so, what is your turnover?

The business is profitable. In our last financial year, which ends in June, we sold just short of R1 billion worth of assets.

How has the auction business changed in the last few years?

It's been a massive change. Historically in South Africa auctions were associated with bankruptcy, death and despair.

Auctioneers themselves perpetuated and liked that because the economy was on a rollercoaster ride and we were dealing with a large volume of liquidations.

Auctions arose from that. It was a very profitable and lucrative business in the 1980s and 1990s.

Over the last few years, for a whole host of reasons, liquidations have dropped.

Now we have low interest rates, general economic stability, the banks themselves have tried not to liquidate companies because they are also doing well, the legislative environment is far more difficult and there is also the stigma attached to the liquidation industry.

Critics of auctioneers, with pressure from government, said we don't just want businesses to be liquidated with auctioneers coming in and selling off the assets.

What about the labour? And for that reason auctioneering changed.

We as a company have been at the forefront of creating a change. It was adapt or die. About three years ago we promoted auctions as a first-choice method of transacting.

It started in the Western Cape, where we started in the residential property market.

So should I sell my property through an estate agent or via an auctioneer?

There has been a vociferous debate. A lot of estate agents jumped up and down. Some said auctions did not work in the South African context.

Auctioneers in South Africa like to quote the Australians, where 85 percent of real estate is sold via auction. Perhaps that is a model we'd like to replicate.

At the end of the day auctions work. Because of the history, because of the bankruptcy, death and despair history there's always been a perception that auctions work in a forced environment.

In reality, auctions work where there is a very strong market and it's really just a bit of the law of supply and demand. When you have demand, you are going to have very fierce competitive bidding.

When you have fierce competitive bidding, your only outlet is the auction environment. Auctions work very well when there's a high demand for an asset, better than estate agency sales.

In the end it depends on what you are selling. At the moment we're finding a bit of a cool-off in the top end of the residential market and we find very strong bidding activity in the commercial and industrial property market.

Are auction houses benefiting from low interest rates in any way?

We've had the best 12 months in our history. We have grown about 150 percent on the previous year in terms of turnover. Low interest rates, high business confidence and economic stability make the best environment for auctions or for any sales business.

We are part of a retail boom, there's a lot of confidence. Auctions are a barometer of the markets.

The number of people attending auctions is 10 times that of five years ago

The average attendance is about 70 people, as opposed to seven in the late 1990s.

Do you find lots of property speculators at auctions?

Yes, you do find property speculators but they are the minority. We do not want to be seen as a business that is giving assets away for nothing.

In certain environments you find speculators. We do cattle auctions for example, where we sell to speculators in the rural areas.

How did you acquire your love for auctioneering?

I was studying law at UCT and landed in it almost by accident.

I was interested in real estate and one day I was driving around one of the so-called coloured areas, Blue Downs, and I bumped to the sheriff of the court conducting an auction.

The minute I saw that I was transfixed and I used to bunk lectures and go to every auction. I was like an auction groupie. I loved it from that moment.

How long have you been doing it?

My first auction was in 1992. At my first auction I was 21 years old, I did it just after my 21st birthday.

How do you keep up with trends?

We are linked up with an international group, which we represent on the African continent so we pick up a lot of international trends from them.

I travel extensively and like to go to auctions all around the world from Sotheby's through to Australia, where every single estate agent is an auctioneer.

A lot of the innovations in the local market have followed those trends.

I also watch trends locally to see what the economy is doing. For an auction business it's important to track different industries.

The nice thing is that we can move from industry to industry. So when we notice, for example, that the second hand motor vehicle market is good, we can go in.

What was the least you got at an auction and what was the most?

The least we got was when we literally sold a house for R10 and the most expensive was when we sold Tokyo Sexwale's Stonehurst development to Mvela Prop for R64.5 million last year.

Your prognosis for the economy in the medium term?

South Africa to me is pretty stable. I certainly see over the next three to five years great stability and low interest rates. For the auction business it's going to be a great period.

Have you ever refused to sell an asset for any moral or other reason?

Yes, we regularly turn down auctions for a host of reasons. The biggest reason is that we feel that the seller has unrealistic expectations about value.

Auctions are events and those events need to be successful. If events are not going to be successful we don't take them on.

For moral reasons too, sometimes we just say we don't believe we're suited to do it. In the farming market, for instance, sometimes labourers have been on the farm for years.

We feel that it is not correct to dispose of those assets and we don't take those auctions on.

You commute between Johannesburg and Cape Town. How often do you do it?

I'm one one of those people who in their minds believe they live in Cape Town and work in Johannesburg. Trust me, there are lots of us.

I see them in aeroplanes all the time. I tend to spend the middle days of every week in Johannesburg.

What's the way forward for your company?

We run our business in three-year cycles and we always plan three years ahead.

Three years ago we planned to roll out more branches.
We were always a Cape Town-based company. Today, Cape Town is a small node.

We have offices in Paarl, a large office in Midrand, Johannesburg, we've got one in Durban, Bloemfontein, Nelspruit and we have just acquired from one of the co-ops called Tuinroete Agri, their auction business in Riversdal.

We have eight branches in South Africa and a representative branch in Namibia. We employ 120 people.

What is your guiding philosophy in life?

To make a difference and live life with integrity and with a bit of passion.