Francois van Niekerk

Francois van Niekerk is recognised for his imaginative focus on using commercial success to redress societal imbalance in a Christian context

After a corporate career at the Rembrandt Group, Anglo American and Armscor, Francois founded the Mertech Group in 1980.  From a challenging start without capital the Mertech Group developed over 36 years to an international conglomerate. SA activities cover property, information technology, bulk logistics handling, hydropower generation, coal mining, luxury goods and short term insurance. EU operations are in property and health & fitness gymnasiums with global activities the retrieval and recycling of redundant marine telecom cables.  Francois co-founded the Atterbury property group and served as Chairman of Atterbury Investment Holdings from its inception in 1994 to 2012.

Mr van Niekerk’s vision of philanthropy is underpinned by his belief in the equitable distribution of actual business ownership and wealth among all stakeholder groups.  In this spirit, Francois established a completely independent Christian community trust, the Mergon Foundation. The Mergon Foundation is rather unique in global philanthropic terms, not only in holding 65% of the founding business, but also in avoiding the legal entrenchment of any founder rights or continuous family control. The 65% shareholding accorded the foundation R90 million in dividends for the 2015/16 fiscal year. Annual dividends are used to benefit some 140 large-scale faith-based organisations that collectively finance 700 projects mainly in South Africa, but also in southern, central and north Africa as well as other countries.

Mr van Niekerk holds the conviction that government, business and the faith community, working in unison, can serve communities’ needs better, and in particular address more effectively the widespread poverty that the country and our continent faces.  Francois authored a book Doing Business with Purpose: beyond success to Significance, and he received a number of  academic-, business- and philanthropy awards; including an honorary doctorate from Unisa.