Koos Bekker Net Worth

Koos Bekker has an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion, according to Forbes Real-Time Billionaires, Koos Bekker profile (figures as of October 20, 2026). That is up from $2.3 billion in 2019.

Koos Bekker is a South African business leader known for building Naspers into a much bigger media and internet group. After working in advertising, he finished an MBA in 1984 and then helped start M-Net, one of the first 2 pay television services outside the United States. M-Net and related businesses later expanded across Africa. In the 1990s, he was also a founding director of mobile company MTN, adding another early growth business to his career.

His biggest rise came at Naspers. Bekker became CEO in 1997 and pushed the company beyond newspapers into pay TV, mobile, and internet businesses. A key move came in 2001, when Naspers paid a reported $34 million for a third of Tencent Holdings. He retired as CEO in March 2014, then returned as chairman in April 2015. He also serves as chairman of Prosus, which holds the Tencent stake after a 2019 asset move.

How Koos Bekker built his fortune

Bekker’s wealth comes from media and investments, according to Forbes, with most of the story tied to Naspers and Prosus. He helped create pay television through M-Net and sister company MultiChoice, which grew into a large African platform. At Naspers, he backed mobile telephony and internet services instead of staying focused on newspapers. That shift turned the company into a broader consumer internet group operating across many countries and markets.

The best known deal in his career was the 2001 Tencent investment. Naspers paid a reported $34 million for a third of the Chinese internet company, a stake that later became central to Bekker’s wealth story. In 2019, Naspers placed some assets into 2 listed companies, MultiChoice Group and Prosus, with Prosus holding the Tencent stake. Naspers has also sold down that investment over time and now owns less than 25%.

Forbes net worth updates

Forbes has tracked Bekker’s fortune through several market cycles. It estimated his net worth at $2.3 billion in 2019, then $2 billion in 2020. The number later moved to $3 billion in 2021 and $2.3 billion in 2022. Those swings match the kind of changes often seen when a fortune is tied to public companies, especially groups with major technology and media holdings such as Naspers and Prosus.

More recently, Forbes put his wealth at $2.6 billion in 2024 and $3.6 billion on the 2026 World’s Billionaires list. Forbes currently shows $3.2 billion on its real-time billionaires tracker as of October 20, 2026. The main drivers in his money story are the value of Naspers and Prosus and the long-running impact of the Tencent investment, plus the group’s move from traditional media into internet and e-commerce assets.