Naspers has made the first investment through its new Naspers Foundry start-up fund, buying a stake in Internet-based domestic cleaning service SweepSouth for R30-million.
Browsing: Bob van Dijk
Naspers may be moving most of its Internet businesses to a new listing in Amsterdam, but the Cape Town-based technology investor is at pains to show it’s not abandoning South Africa.
Naspers, the most valuable company on the JSE, will prioritise investments in classifieds, financial technology and food — activities that it could possibly hive off with separate share listings in the right circumstances.
The perennial worry about European technology is that there isn’t a consumer-facing giant to rival the size of Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.com. In one fell swoop, it’s about to get one. Sort of.
Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk has been working for years to solve a problem rivals might envy – getting investors to value the South African firm nearer to its $133-billion stake in Tencent. A plan for a Dutch listing is his boldest step yet.
Naspers, the biggest investor in Chinese tech giant Tencent, is spinning off its main Internet businesses in Amsterdam in a push to boost its value.
MultiChoice Group made its market debut in Johannesburg on Wednesday morning as a JSE Top40 company with a market capitalisation of about R44-billion shortly after 9am.
Naspers said on Friday that it is investing almost $1.2-billion (about R16-billion) to buy an additional 29.1% stake in Russian classifieds business Avito.
Naspers published interim results on Friday for the six months ended 30 September 2018. TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod spoke to group CEO Bob van Dijk on various aspects of the JSE-listed media and technology giant’s latest financial report.
Naspers said on Friday that it will invest R1.4-billion to help South African technology entrepreneurs grow their start-ups and will invest R4.6-billion over the next three years in the local technology sector.