South African billionaire Koos Bekker sells off Prosus shares worth $190 million

South African billionaire Koos Bekker, who is chairman of both Naspers and Prosus, has sold R3.4 billion worth of Prosus shares to finance the development of hotels.

According to a statement from Prosus, the shares were sold via a family trust over the past week, and the proceeds will be used for building operations at hotels in various countries.

The shares were sold in three separate for approximately €173.4 million (R3.4 billion).

It has been a decade since the trust last sold Naspers or Prosus shares.

In 2015, however, Bekker himself sold R20 billion in Naspers stock options.

Koos Bekker developed the Babylonstoren estate in the Cape Winelands with his wife Karen Roos, the former editor of Elle Decoration. They opened The Newt in Somerset, England, in 2019. Both properties contain expansive gardens, restaurants, and hotels.

Bekker founded the pay-television company M-Net (later MultiChoice) in 1985 and became CEO of Naspers in 1997.

In 2015, he was appointed chairman. Under his leadership, Naspers acquired a third of the Chinese internet company Tencent for $34 million in 2001. Since then, Tencent’s total market value has skyrocketed to over $470 billion.

The share price of Prosus has increased by more than 72 percent over the past year, while that of Naspers nearly doubled.