South African billionaire launches exclusive hotels across the world

South African billionaire Koos Bekker has built and launched numerous luxury estates worldwide, including in Franschhoek, Amsterdam, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

Koos Bekker was born in Potchefstroom on 14 December 1952. He attended Hoër Volkskool Heidelberg and excelled academically and in sports.

He was the school’s top performer and passed Afrikaans, English, Maths, and Physical Sciences with distinction. He was also the head boy in his matric year.

He played in the first cricket team, won the regional trophy as part of the first tennis team, and led the second rugby team to victory in its league.

After school, he completed degrees in law and literature at Stellenbosch University and law at Wits University.

After graduating, he became a state prosecutor but soon realised it was not the right fit for him and moved to advertising.

In the early 1980s, Bekker and his wife, Karen Roos, sold their house, and he borrowed money to enrol in an MBA program at Columbia University.

Having researched the concept as part of his MBA degree, he returned to South Africa and, with Ton Vosloo, persuaded the major newspaper groups to invest in M-Net.

The fledgling pay-TV station started broadcasting in 1986. It initially lost a lot of money before succeeding spectacularly, leading to a listing in 1990.

Flushed with success and realising that M-Net had probably reached its growth ceiling, Bekker split the company into M-Net and MultiChoice, which later became MIH.

M-Net and MultiChoice’s success helped show Bekker’s exceptional business acumen, leading to his appointment as Naspers CEO in 1997.

In 1999, Bekker made the unusual decision to forgo his salary, bonuses, and other perks and instead elected to be compensated through stock options.

This tied his personal wealth directly to Naspers’s success and its investments, aligning his interests with those of shareholders.

While a risky move at the time, it has since become one of the smartest business decisions of his career.

Under his leadership, Naspers bought a large stake in the Chinese Internet firm Tencent in 2001. Today, Tencent is one of the world’s largest companies.

This stake made Naspers South Africa’s most valuable company, and with it, Bekker became a dollar billionaire.

He retired as Naspers’ CEO on 31 March 2014. On 17 April 2015, he succeeded Vosloo as chair of the Naspers board. He remains chairman to this day.

Bekker launches luxury estates across the world

In recent years, a family trust linked to Koos Bekker has sold over R6 billion of shares in Prosus, which he used for investing in his luxury estates.

In March 2023, Bekker’s family trust sold 2.5 million Prosus shares, worth R3.4 billion, to finance building operations at hotels in various countries in which he holds an interest.

This was followed up with his family trust selling a further R2.9 billion worth of shares in Prosus in December 2024.

This money was aimed at funding building operations at his hotels in South Africa, the United Kingdom, and Italy.

There is speculation that this sale will partly pay for the construction of Blou in Keurboomstrand, which will be created out of Bekker’s holiday home.

Blou will be the latest addition to Bekker’s luxury estate offerings around the world. It complements other luxury estates, including the well-known Babylonstoren in Stellenbosch.

Babylonstoren spans nearly six acres and features architecture dating back to 1690, a farm, and an orchard vineyard.

He also owns other properties across the country and abroad, including a multi-million-pound estate, The Newt, in Somerset in the United Kingdom.

Here is a look at Bekker and his wife, Karen Roos’, growing portfolio of luxury estates and hotels in many of the world’s tourist hotspots.

Babylonstoren in Stellenbosch

Babylonstoren, founded in 1692, is one of the oldest working Cape Dutch farms in the Winelands region just outside Cape Town.

The estate is positioned around a sprawling garden inspired by the historic Company’s Garden in Cape Town.

After Bekker purchased the estate in 2007, his wife extensively renovated and restored it, which now includes luxury accommodations and award-winning restaurants.

Roos commissioned French garden architect Patrice Taravella to plan the garden’s layout. The planning alone took two years, and the planting twelve months.

Babylonstoren’s buildings have also been restored, including the traditional H-form house, storerooms, gabled henhouse and pigeon loft, wine cellar, stables, and workshops.

The Babylonstoren Farm Hotel and cottages offer an authentic farm stay in various cottages, a manor house, and a family house.

The Newt in Somerset

Following Babylonstoren’s success, Bekker and Roos turned their attention to The Newt near Bruton in Somerset, United Kingdom.

Constructed on a 2,000-acre working farm, the Hadspen House and the Emily Estate were originally bought by the couple as a private home.

“My husband wanted an agricultural location close to London, which is hard to find,” Roos told House and Garden at the time.

“I’d read a lot of English literary classics set in this part of the country and had fallen for Bath. When we found Hadspen, it seemed perfect.”

Roos and Bekker reimagined the old Georgian manor house as a hotel in time for its 2019 opening. As with Babylonstoren, the focus is on the 300-acre garden.

The Newt also hosts the annual Chelsea Flower Show, where guests are supplied with Babylonstoren wines. A one-night stay in a single room costs £855.

Vignamaggio in Italy

Vignamaggio is a historical estate located between Florence and Siena, founded out of an ancient settlement in the 1400s.

The estate sprawls over over 400 hectares, with vineyards, vegetable gardens and ornamental plants.

As with the other estates, Vignamaggio is a working farm and still produces some of the finest wine in Italy, over 600 years since it first began.

The estate has not always been in such good condition, falling into severe disrepair after the Second World War.

The grand house, with its chapel, magnificent frescoes, and outbuildings, fell into decline until 2017, when restoration began.

Today, the villa is an upscale B&B and winery that bills itself as “The Birthplace of Mona Lisa” as Lisa Gherardini, the subject of Mona Lisa, was supposedly born at Vignamaggio.

The estate has also significantly diversified its produce outside of wine to olive oil, vegetables, and hospitality, which is in line with the other farms owned by Bekker and Roos.

Vignamaggio was transformed from a traditional wine farm into a modern agricultural estate, with an Italian hotel, three private villas, and four apartments.

Over-Amstel Boerderij in Amsterdam

Over-Amstel Boerderij, first built in 1894, is situated on the Amstel River in the Duivendrechtse Polder, a region near Amsterdam. It has a robust farmhouse and a wide front.

The farmhouse features unique ceiling paintings and a rich interior, which aligns with the area’s characteristic history, with wealthy families moving from the city to the Amstelland countryside.

As with The Newt in Somerset, Bekker and Roos found this estate perfect for those who want to stay near a major city while enjoying country living.

Bekker and Roos commissioned an extensive restoration process on the site and turned it into a working farm.

The estate offers a farm with a garden, a cheese factory, a farm-to-fork restaurant, and a boutique B&B in its historical front house with two rooms.

The Story of Emily in St Ive, Cornwall

Located in St Ive, Cornwall, The Story of Emily is well out of Bekker and Roos’s wheelhouse, as it is not a working estate, farm, or hotel.

Rather, it is the restored house of Emily Hobhouse, who famously defied the British Empire to expose the horrors of concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer War.

Branded a “hysterical woman” and “traitor”, she refused to be silenced, saving thousands of Boer women and children.

She didn’t just speak out. She published damning reports, led social reforms, and single-handedly challenged an empire at war.

Today’s house contains the Rectory, which Emily and her siblings grew up in. It was first designed and constructed between 1852 and 1854.

Living on the estate until she was 34, the Hobhouse family was firmly part of the landed elite and had numerous servants.

The Story of Emily allows travellers to travel back in time to follow Hobhouse’s story and reveal how she would have grown up during the Victorian era.

The home now also includes the aptly named The Restaurant, which cooks traditional South African food using ingredients grown in the nearby garden.

BLOU in Keurboomstrand in South Africa

For decades, Bekker and Roos have been holidaying at Keurboomstrand on the Western Cape coastline.

This estate is small and intimate, nestled in a craggy elbow where the Tsitsikamma mountains almost meet the Indian Ocean.

Keurboomstrand features one of the most charming little beaches in the world, famed for its rugged coastline and unspoilt beaches.

Over recent years, Bekker and Roos restored and upgraded a few beach cottages on a sea-facing strip of land. 

BLOU has only eight self-catering cottages. They are dotted around a central courtyard with a swimming pool, sauna and steam room.