Koos Bekker
Cape Town, South Africa
LLB, University of Witwatersrand | Master of Business Administration, Columbia Business School
South Africa
media, investments, Self Made
$2,500,000,000
1008
#1008 Billionaires 2019
#8 Africa's Billionaires 2019
Koos Bekker is revered for transforming South African newspaper publisher Naspers into an ecommerce investor & cable TV powerhouse. He led Naspers to invest in Chinese Internet and media firm Tencent in 2001 -- by far the most profitable of the bets he made on companies elsewhere.Naspers has a 31% stake in Tencent, and Bekker serves as a non-executive director at the Chinese company. It sold a 2% stake in Tencent in March 2018, its first time reducing its holding, but stated at the time it would not sell again for 3 years.Bekker, who retired as the CEO of Naspers in March 2014, returned as chairman in April 2015.
His Babylonstoren estate, nearly 600 acres in South Africa's Western Cape region, features architecture dating back to 1690, a farm, orchard and vineyard and more. Over the summer of 2015 he sold more than 70% of his Naspers shares.
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