Naspers, MTN slide 4.5% on the JSE

·22 Mar 2013

Shares in media giant Naspers, and mobile operator MTN, dropped in excess of 4% each in mid-day trade on the JSE on Friday (22 March) amid a sell-off on industrials by investors looking to take profits.

Shares in Naspers declined R26.28 or 4.41% to R569.59 shortly before noon on the local bourse, down from a peak of R645.75 on the 11 March.

MTN meanwhile, lost R8.27 or 4.71% to R167.21 due to its ex-dividend status. MTN is also down from a best of R183.79, achieved in early February.

Naspers

A local dealer attributed Naspers’s demise to Chinese firm Tencent, which fell HK$10.40 or 3.96% to HK$252.40 on Thursday after analysts cut the group’s share-price forecast.
Naspers has a 35% interest in China’s largest internet company.

According to Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley cut the company’s share price forecast by 1.6% to HK$315.70, citing lower profit margins and slowing growth in game sales after Tencent released fourth-quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates on Wednesday.

Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Piper Jaffray, CIMB Group Holdings, OSK Securities Hong Kong, and Bocom International Securities, also dropped their price targets.

Tencent reported a 54% increase in revenue for the year ended 2012, with an operating profit up 26.3%.

Total revenues for the fourth quarter of 2012, showed a 5.1% increase from the prior quarter, while operating revenue quarter on quarter declined 9.7%.

MTN

The dealer pointed to MTN’s ex-dividend status on Friday. Earlier this month, the group declared a final dividend of 503 cents for the year ended December 2012, from 476 cents in 2011.

He also said that a number of investors were looking to cash in on industrials on the JSE. “It looks like there is a broad sell-off in big industrials. A lot of investors are looking to take some cream off the top,” he said.

The All Share index traded a fraction over 40,000 points, off 0.79% on the day.