Prosus suffers from the same problem as Manchester City Football Club: Because everyone knows it has access to vast amounts of capital, it’s always at risk of overpaying for acquisitions.
Browsing: Bob van Dijk
Investors in Naspers said on Thursday they want proceeds from a $14.7-billion stake sale in its Tencent Holdings investment to go towards blockbuster acquisitions or a share buyback.
Naspers spin-off, technology investment company Prosus, plans to sell a 2% stake in China’s Tencent, worth about R218-billion at current prices, in an accelerated offering to institutional investors.
Naspers has hired a top Airbnb and former Amazon executive to lead its global online classifieds business, it said on Thursday, as the technology investor looks to shore up contributions from core businesses.
In a surprise development, Takealot.com has announced that its CEO, Kim Reid, is stepping down from the role. He is not leaving Takelot, though – he will become chairman of South Africa’s largest online retailer later this year.
Whenever Naspers and Prosus management address any of their stakeholders, somebody will ask what they’re doing to address the discount of the Naspers share price to its underlying net asset value.
Naspers and Prosus CEO Bob van Dijk does not expect Amazon.com to enter South Africa’s e-commerce sector “any time soon” given the “really good job” being done by Naspers subsidiary Takealot.com.
Naspers is looking at ways to reduce its dominance of the JSE, an issue that is hampering efforts to narrow a widening valuation gap between the company and its stake in Chinese Internet giant Tencent.
Prosus is on the lookout for acquisitions after the Dutch e-commerce giant reported a 28% rise in first-half earnings and a net cash position of US$4.3-billion.
Naspers’s European-listed Internet investment holding company Prosus announced on Friday that it plans to acquire up to $5-billion in both Naspers and Prosus shares in a massive share buyback programme.