Prosus, the giant investor in online classifieds, food delivery and payments, expects to report a 16.9% to 22.7% growth in earnings per share for the six months to the end of September, it said on Monday.
The company’s forecast comes a week before it is due to report earnings on 23 November.
In a statement the company said it faced challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic “particularly in countries where government lockdown regulations were wide ranging and long lasting”.
“However, we have seen a sharp recovery in all of our impacted businesses … once lockdown regulations began easing,” the company said in a statement.
It forecast an increase of $0.26 to $0.35 over the $1.54 in earnings per share it registered in the same six months of 2019. Shares in Amsterdam were down 0.5% at 88.34 euros ($104.56) at 6.07pm South African time.
Prosus is controlled by Naspers and owns a 31% stake in Chinese Internet giant Tencent. — Reported by Toby Sterling, (c) 2020 Reuters