NewsFrom a cassette table to Peace FM: how Osei Kwame Despite built a media group, and why nobody can put a number on it
Peace FM went on air on 25 May 1999. UTV followed in 2013. In June 2025 the Asantehene opened his car museum. But no credible wealth list has ever published a net worth for the founder of the Despite Group.
Osei Kwame Despite, the founder of the Despite Group of Companies, owns some of the best-known names in Ghanaian media: Peace FM, Okay FM, Neat FM, Hello FM in Kumasi and, with his long-time partner Ernest Ofori Sarpong, UTV. What no one has is a credible figure for what he is worth.
Where it started
He was born on 2 February 1962 at Agona Wiamoase in the Ashanti Region, MyJoyOnline and Yen.com.gh reported when he turned 60. Pulse Ghana and MyJoyOnline give the same hometown. In a rare Etv Ghana clip on 6 February 2022, reported by Yen.com.gh, he said he "started from nowhere".
The story of his early years comes from one biography, retold by MyJoyOnline in 2016, Pulse Ghana and Ghana Talks Business in 2020 and Billionaires.Africa in 2026. No on-record interview in which he tells it himself has been found. According to that biography, he started out as a petty trader in Dunkwa, selling music cassettes, padlocks and baby feeding bottles. In the early 1980s, the story goes, he went to Lagos to find work, and came home in 1983, the year Nigeria expelled undocumented West African migrants, the expulsion Ghanaians remember as "Ghana Must Go". He is said to have returned with a chainsaw and a cassette player, and to have tried the timber trade. It failed.
Cassettes, then radio
He went back to music. Despite Stores distributed audio cassettes, Pulse Ghana and Billionaires.Africa report. On 1 June 2025, Kofi Okyere Darko (KOD) said he had sold cassettes and compact discs for Despite while he was still in secondary school, Yen.com.gh and 3News reported.
Peace FM, on 104.3 in Accra, first went on air on 25 May 1999, according to the station's own tenth-anniversary report and ModernGhana. Okay FM, Neat FM and Hello FM followed; QMS News could not confirm their launch years from two sources. UTV launched in 2013. Despite has described Ernest Ofori Sarpong as a friend of about 40 years, in a video at Ofori Sarpong's 60th birthday on 5 May 2026, reported by Yen.com.gh.
What can be counted
On 27 March 2020, in the first weeks of COVID-19 in Ghana, Despite and Ofori Sarpong gave US$100,000 to Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Graphic Online and GhanaWeb reported. After the 3 June 2015 flood and fire in Accra, the Despite Group set up a disaster relief fund, seeded with ₵100,000 by the two men, which shared more than ₵200,000 among victims in four hospitals, according to Graphic Online and ModernGhana.
For his 60th birthday in February 2022, he bought a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport, reportedly worth about US$3 million, Yen.com.gh reported. The price is a media estimate, not a published invoice.
On 1 June 2025, the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, commissioned the Despite Automobile Museum at East Legon, Accra, Graphic Online and Ghana Weekend reported. Accounts of how many cars it holds differ, and the museum has not published an official count.
The number nobody has
Despite is not on the Forbes Africa rich list and has never published accounts for his companies. In October 2026 Billionaires.Africa wrote that no major wealth tracker has an estimate of his fortune. The billion-dollar figures that circulate online come from sites that give no sources, and QMS News does not repeat them.
Despite rarely speaks in public. Yen.com.gh described the 2022 Etv Ghana clip as his first public statement in about 20 years.
THE WORTH is a QMS series on how Ghanaians built their wealth, told through the numbers. Early-life scenes in the episode are recreations.
He didn't jump from padlocks to Peace FM. Cassettes became a store. The store became a station. The station became an empire. Your first cedi doesn't have to be big. It just has to be in the thing you know.
- MyJoyOnline: Social media celebrates Kwame Despite as he turns 60 (2 Feb 2022)
- Yen.com.gh: Despite storms town in luxury car as he celebrates 60th birthday (2 Feb 2022)
- MyJoyOnline: 3 secrets of Kwame Despite that must inspire every young entrepreneur (8 Nov 2016)
- Pulse Ghana: How Kwame Despite makes and spends his money (2020)
- Ghana Talks Business: Cassette seller to media mogul, the success story of Kwame Despite (Oct 2020)
- Billionaires.Africa: How Ghanaian media mogul Osei Kwame Despite built his empire from cassettes (6 Oct 2026)
- Yen.com.gh: Osei Kwame Despite grants first interview in about 20 years (7 Feb 2022)
- ModernGhana: Osei Kwame Despite, brainchild of Peace FM
- Wikipedia: United Television Ghana
- Yen.com.gh: KOD sold cassettes for Despite in his secondary school days (2 Jun 2025)
- 3News: I used to sell cassettes for Osei Kwame Despite while in secondary school, KOD (Jun 2025)
- Yen.com.gh: Osei Kwame shares the genesis of his 40-year friendship with Ernest Ofori Sarpong (5 May 2026)
- Graphic Online: How Osei Kwame Despite, Ofori Sarpong donated $100k to KATH (Mar 2020)
- GhanaWeb: Coronavirus, Despite, Ofori Sarpong donate $100,000 to KATH (27 Mar 2020)
- Graphic Online: Despite Group donates to 4 hospitals (Jun 2015)
- ModernGhana: Accra fire, flood victims grateful to Despite Group (2015)
- Yen.com.gh: Osei Kwame Despite buys $3m Bugatti Chiron Super Sport as 60th birthday gift (Feb 2022)
- Graphic Online: Asantehene commissions Despite Auto Museum (3 Jun 2025)
- Ghana Weekend: Despite commissions Ghana's first world-class automobile museum in Accra (2 Jun 2025)
Every factual line in this story is checked against at least two independent sources, unless the text says it comes from one report.