Patrice Motsepe is one of South Africa’s most successful entrepreneurs, with holdings in telecoms, digital banking, and mining firms, among many others.

According to Forbes ‘ World’s Billionaire list, Motsepe’s estimated net worth was $2.8 billion (R52 billion) as of Monday, 10 February 2025. He became South Africa’s first black billionaire and the first black African to make the Forbes Richest list in 2008.

As of February 2025, he was ranked the 1,238th wealthiest person in the world.

Motsepe was born on 28 January 1962 in Soweto, Johannesburg, and learnt basic business principles from his father, Kgosi Augustine Motsepe, who owned a spaza shop popular with mine workers.

His father was chief of the Mmakau tribal authority of the Tswana people.

His spaza shop also gave Motsepe a first-hand perspective of miners’ experiences. Motsepe attributes much of his entrepreneurial success to what he learned while working in his parent’s store.

Regarding his education, Motsepe went to a boarding school in the Eastern Cape before studying for a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Swaziland.

He returned to Gauteng to attend the University of the Witwatersrand, where he completed a law degree specialising in mining and business.

After studying, Motsepe was appointed the first black partner at the Bowman Gilfillan law firm in 1994. He had joined the firm roughly six years earlier.

Motsepe ultimately left Bowman Gilfillan to start Foundation Mining in 1994 — his first significant business move.

He leveraged South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment laws to build his mining enterprise.

He founded Future Mining, a company offering gold dust cleaning services at the Vaal Reefs gold mine, and started his meteoric rise in the mining sector.

Future Mining offered a worker remuneration system comprising a low base salary and added profit-sharing bonuses, which partly contributed to its success.

As he approached the turn of the millennium, Motsepe acquired several marginal gold mines from AngloGold and formed ARMgold, which provided much of his initial wealth.

ARMgold paved the way for Motsepe to establish African Rainbow Minerals (ARM) in 2004 after ARMgold merged with Harmony and scooped up Anglovaal mining.

He has also enjoyed success in financial services through Ubuntu-Botho Investments (UBI), which he created in 2003.

Outside of South Africa’s borders, Motsepe sits on the Board of Trustees of the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Global Network of Advisory Board of the WEF Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and the WEB International Business Council (IBC).

He also serves on the International Council on Mining and Metals and the Harvard Global Advisory Council.

A shift to telecoms

Much of Motsepe’s wealth growth in recent years has come through the telecoms market, with African Rainbow Capital’s significant shareholding in mobile network operator Rain.

Rain contributes a significant portion of the ARC Fund portfolio’s value.

The mobile network operator initially focused on uncapped 4G products but became the country’s first mobile network to launch fixed-5G broadband.

However, it didn’t operate a fully-fledged mobile network until mid-2024, when it launched RainOne, combining 4G mobile SIMs with its fixed-5G packages.

In August 2024, ARC invested a further R160 million in Rain, bringing its shareholding in the network operator to 21%.

ARC estimates that the intrinsic value of its Rain shareholding grew from R4.5 billion in June 2023 to R5.2 billion in June 2024, putting Rain’s total valuation at an estimated R25 billion.

Another major success in the ARC stable is TymeBank, which has seen explosive customer growth since launching in early 2019.

The table below provides an overview of Motsepe’s holdings.