ANTON HARBER: How Koos Bekker keeps a firm hand on the tiller
The Naspers chairman has always taken calculated risks and believes in tight control of the global media group
When Ton Vosloo tapped Koos Bekker to take over as CEO of Naspers in 1996, Bekker said he would take no salary, no benefits and had a contract that would allow him to be dismissed without a golden handshake if he did not deliver. But he wanted to be paid in shares. Vosloo generously gave Bekker a big bundle of shares. Exactly how many is not known for the first five-year contract, because it was not then a JSE requirement to divulge it. But in his second five-year contract, he received 11.6-million shares, about 3% of the company. If he had sold this second lot as they were released, Bekker would have profited by as much as R1bn a year. At today’s value, that 3% would be worth more than R30bn, and he had three five-year contracts as CEO before he became chairman, each position coming with a bundle of shares. In a country in which executives of some major companies are remunerated disproportionately, Bekker is in a league of his own. When he chose his successor, he needed to show som...
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