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.
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.
Shares of Tencent Holdings dropped in Hong Kong after Naspers unit Prosus priced its placement of the Chinese Internet giant’s stock at the top end of a marketed range, raising $14.7-billion.
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.
Chinese gaming and social media group Tencent Holdings, partially owned by Naspers spin-off Prosus, on Wednesday reported a market-beating 26% jump in quarterly sales, helped in part by its online gaming business.
Pony Ma’s Tencent Holdings has been put on notice. Asia’s largest conglomerate was censured by China’s antitrust watchdog on Friday as Beijing expands a crackdown that began with Jack Ma’s online empire.
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 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.
South Africa’s main share index jumped 2.1% as of 10.07am in Johannesburg, setting a fresh intraday record, as Naspers was lifted by a surge in partly owned Chinese online giant Tencent.