Peter Matlare, who has died at the age of 60 from Covid-19 complications, had messed up spectacularly as CEO of Tiger Brands and had zero executive banking experience when Absa CEO Maria Ramos made him the bank’s deputy group CEO and gave him one of the most fiendishly challenging jobs in the sector.

This was in effect to turn 1,267 branches of Barclays bank across 12 countries in Africa into Absa branches after Barclays’ sudden 2016 decision to cut its stake in Absa from 63% to 14.9%...