{"id":821422,"date":"2025-04-19T16:40:05","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T14:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=821422"},"modified":"2025-04-19T16:41:44","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T14:41:44","slug":"r105-billion-jackpot-for-south-africas-richest-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/821422\/r105-billion-jackpot-for-south-africas-richest-men\/","title":{"rendered":"R105 billion jackpot for South Africa’s richest men"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa has one more dollar billionaire ranked among the global elite in 2025, with seven ultra-wealthy individuals now making the cut for Forbes’ annual billionaire ranking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collective wealth of these seven men has also increased by R105.2 billion since April 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s billionaires a worth a combined $36 billion (R675 billion) in 2025, having lifted their wealth significantly over the past year, despite the market turmoil of the Trump presidency in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luxury goods tycoon and perennial wealthiest man in the country, Johann Rupert, again comes out on top of the local ranking having boosted his wealth by $1.8 billion to a total net worth of $14 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the order is also largely unchanged, with diamond magnate Nicky Oppenheimer ranked second, followed by media owner Koos Bekker and minerals boss Patrice Motsepe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A change from 2024 is that Bekker has overtaken Motsepe’s wealth in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bekker’s wealth is mostly tied up in Naspers and Prosus, while Motsepe’s wealth is based on his holdings in African Rainbow Minerals and African Rainbow Capital. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The changes from 2024 to 2025 reflect the respective performances of these businesses over the last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Retail billionaire Christo Wiese and Capitec founder Michiel Le Roux have also stuck to the ranking, having re-entered in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Le Roux entered the Forbes ranking in 2021, and experienced some ups and downs over the years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He almost dropped out of the ranking in 2023 due to the rand\u2019s depreciation, but has seen his wealth boom, almost doubling since 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wiese, meanwhile, was a frequent feature on the Forbes ranking until his wealth crashed along with the fall of Steinhoff in 2017\/18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His fortunes were unfortunately tied up in Steinhoff, having sold his majority stake in Pepkor for a 20% share of the ill-fated retail giant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When massive accounting fraud was uncovered at Steinhoff, its share value tanked over 95%, taking a significant chunk of Wiese’s net worth along with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, thanks to his holdings in Shoprite and some recoveries from the Steinhoff mess, the businessman showed remarkable resilience and re-entered the Forbes rankings in 2024, once again a global billionaire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s ‘newest’ billionaire<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
PSG founder Jannie Mouton re-entered the billionaire ranking for the first time since 2017.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The biggest change from 2024’s ranking is the re-entry of PSG founder and investor, Jannie Mouton, who was last ranked among South Africa’s richest in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mouton, known as the “boere Buffett”, is a long-time investor building and building great businesses such as PSG Konsult, Curro, and even Capitec.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stepped down as the non-executive chair and director of PSG Group and its subsidiaries with immediate effect in November 2018 due to medical reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mouton’s re-entry onto the Forbes list, with his net worth estimated at $1.5 billion, means that his wealth has grown by a minimum of $501 million over the past year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#<\/strong><\/td>Billionaire<\/strong><\/td>2024<\/strong><\/td>2025<\/strong><\/td>Change<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
165<\/td>Johann Rupert<\/td>$12.2 billion<\/td>$14.0 billion<\/td>+$1,800 million<\/mark><\/mark><\/td><\/tr>
258<\/td>Nicky Oppenheimer<\/td>$9.5 billion<\/td>$10.4 billion<\/td>+$900 million<\/mark><\/td><\/tr>
1072<\/td>Koos Bekker<\/td>$2.6 billion<\/td>$3.4 billion<\/td>+$800 million<\/mark><\/td><\/tr>
1219<\/td>Patrice Motsepe<\/td>$2.7 billion<\/td>$3.0 billion<\/td>+$300 million<\/mark><\/mark><\/td><\/tr>
2171<\/td>Michiel Le Roux<\/td>$1.2 billion<\/td>$2.2 billion<\/td>+$1,000 million<\/mark><\/td><\/tr>
2233<\/td>Christo Wiese<\/td>$1.2 billion<\/td>$1.5 billion<\/td>+$300 million<\/mark><\/td><\/tr>
2233<\/td>Jannie Mouton<\/td><$1.0 billion<\/mark><\/td>$1.5 billion<\/td>+~$500 million<\/td><\/tr>
<\/td>Total<\/strong><\/td>$29.4 billion<\/strong><\/td>$36.0 billion<\/strong><\/td>+$5.6 billion*<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div>
*minimum based on estimates<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa now has seven billionaires ranked among the richest people in the world\u2014and their wealth has grown significantly over the last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":821432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9880],"tags":[4137,4670,4666,2511,20140,4138,4136],"class_list":["post-821422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth","tag-christo-wiese","tag-jannie-mouton","tag-johann-rupert","tag-koos-bekker","tag-michiel-le-roux","tag-nicky-oppenheimer","tag-patrice-motsepe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821422"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":821457,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821422\/revisions\/821457"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}