Cinven, Permira and Mid Europa Partners agreed to buy Naspers’s Polish online auction site Allegro for almost US$3,3bn (R46,4bn), taking on rivals such as eBay in the Eastern European country.
The deal is part of Cape Town-based Naspers’s strategy to profit from its investments, according to a statement from the company.
Naspers bought Allegro in 2008 for about $1,5bn. The acquiring group beat out other private equity consortia including CVC Capital Partners and General Atlantic and a group composed of Advent International and Hellman & Friedman, people familiar with the matter had said.
Naspers rose earlier in the day after Bloomberg first reported on the sale. The stock gained as much as 6,4% in Johannesburg and was trading 5,8% higher at R2 318,95 at 4.14pm, giving the company a market value of over R1 trillion.
Naspers is facing challenges from US technology companies and weaker African currencies as the continent’s biggest company by market value tries to grow its Internet and pay-TV businesses. Naspers hired Morgan Stanley to advise on a potential sale of Allegro, people familiar with the plans said in June.
Allegro, which is similar to US website eBay, is the number one e-commerce platform in Eastern Europe with more than 14m monthly users, according to Naspers’s website.
If completed, the deal will be one of the five largest acquisitions of a Polish asset ever, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Companies in the country have announced $3,5bn in mergers and acquisitions this year, down about 50% from the same period a year ago.
Naspers plans to use the proceeds to repay debt, fund its e-commerce businesses and finance new acquisitions.
It said it remains committed to its remaining assets in Poland, including online and mobile payment provider PayU. — © 2016 Bloomberg LP
