Naspers has declared and finalised a five-for-one subdivision of both its “N” and “A” shares, saying the move will make the stock more accessible to retail investors.
The implementation will kick in from Monday, 6 October 2025. New N ordinary shares will list on the JSE from Wednesday, 1 October, with the record date set for Friday, 3 October.
Management’s rationale is straightforward: the Naspers N share price has become one of the highest nominal prices on the JSE, which can crimp liquidity and discourage participation from smaller investors.
On Monday, the share price closed at R5 892.19, meaning for an investor to buy just 100 shares, it would cost them nearly R600 000.
Aligning the share price more closely with Prosus – its European-listed subsidiary – and improving liquidity should, in theory, help the market more efficiently price the group, a theme the company has hammered since it began simplifying its structure and leaning on aggressive buybacks to close the long-lamented discount to net asset value (NAV).
That discount – essentially the gap between Naspers and Prosus’s market value and the look-through value of the Tencent stake and other assets – has driven a multi-year restructuring.
Bloomberg News reported in June 2023 on the plan to unwind the awkward Naspers/Prosus crossholding, a key precursor to today’s cleaner capital story and the ongoing, open-ended repurchase programme. The explicit aim is to narrow the discount to NAV.
Rallied sharply
Has it worked? The market has rewarded the simplification and capital returns – and, more recently, the change in the group’s leadership. Since Fabricio Bloisi took over as CEO of both Naspers and Prosus on 1 July 2024, Naspers has rallied sharply; over the past year the JSE-listed N shares are up by nearly 70%. While multiple forces are at play (from improving sentiment towards Tencent and soaring tech stocks around the world), investor confidence in the group’s discount-closing tactics has clearly improved.
Read: Upbeat Prosus plans R35-billion in asset sales
The buyback is the workhorse of that strategy. Company disclosures show the “open-ended” programme (across Naspers and Prosus) has returned tens of billions of dollars, with management arguing that each repurchased share applies steady pressure on the discount to NAV. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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