At a Glance
- African billionaires channel investments via SPVs and trusts to protect assets and privacy.
- Koos Bekker’s family trust used corporate vehicles to fund property and hotel projects.
- Corporate ownership structures offer tax benefits, creditor protection, and transactional flexibility for billionaires.
When Africa’s wealthiest business figures acquire hotels, aircraft, or landmark properties, the buyer on paper is often not a person at all. It’s a company. Alternatively, it could be a trust.
Alternatively, it could be a tightly structured Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), situated several layers away from the individual whose wealth established it. This sort of arrangement is not about secrecy for secrecy’s sake. It’s about control, risk management, and capital efficiency.
African billionaires buy assets via trusts and SPVs
For example, in the first quarter of 2023, Koos Bekker’s family trust sold roughly €156 million ($183.2 million) of Prosus shares to fund hotel-building operations at existing luxury estates, specifically for expansion and development at Babylonstoren in South Africa’s Western Cape and The Newt in Somerset in the UK.
The mechanics are straightforward but legally nuanced: a family trust holds shareholdings in listed vehicles; trustees, often tied to family companies, exercise voting and disposal rights; and special-purpose companies (SPVs) owned by the trust acquire assets such as property, hotels, aircraft, or private firms.
Koos Bekker’s family trust
Koos Bekker’s family trust, which holds a relatively modest 0.93 percent stake (1,687,887 ordinary shares) in Naspers, with a 0.76 percent stake in Prosus, totaling 19,646,498 shares, has seen notable increases.
This channel’s investment is through corporate balance sheets, insulating founders from direct ownership and concentrating control within governance documents.
In Bekker’s case, the trust retained a large chunk of Naspers/Prosus exposure while selling a portion of Prosus to bankroll property projects, a move documented in company regulatory filings.
Benefits include estate planning, creditor protection, transactional privacy, and flexibility often. Corporates buying assets can also secure vendor warranties, leverage debt at the entity level, and extract tax timing advantages under local law, though these depend on jurisdictional rules and trustee duties. Bekker is currently worth $3.8 billion, according to Forbes.
