{"id":216253,"date":"2017-12-13T07:30:45","date_gmt":"2017-12-13T05:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=216253"},"modified":"2017-12-13T07:30:45","modified_gmt":"2017-12-13T05:30:45","slug":"naspers-considers-structural-options-to-reduce-discount","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/216253\/naspers-considers-structural-options-to-reduce-discount\/","title":{"rendered":"Naspers considers `structural options’ to reduce discount"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Naspers chief executive officer Bob Van Dijk\u00a0said Africa\u2019s largest company will consider \u201cstructural options\u201d if the value gap with its stake in Tencent Holdings persists.<\/p>\n

Naspers has a 33% stake in Shenzhen, China-based internet giant Tencent, valued at about $158 billion, while Naspers itself has a market value of about $112 billion.\u00a0The discount is \u201ctoo high,\u201d and has been accelerating in the past 20 months, Van Dijk said Tuesday in New York.<\/p>\n

Leaving aside Tencent, analysts place Naspers\u2019 asset value at more than $180 billion, said chief financial officer Basil Sgourdos.<\/p>\n

Africa\u2019s largest company by market value is considering using tools such as depositary receipts to access new pools of capital that are otherwise restricted to trade on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Sgourdos at the investor presentation. Naspers will also consider listing some underlying businesses to unlock further value, he said.<\/p>\n

In October, veteran\u00a0emerging-markets investor Mark Mobius said it should buy back Naspers stock. While repurchases could make sense when the company has more financial flexibility, right now it is focused on spending on expanding its businesses and on acquisitions, Sgourdos said.<\/p>\n

The value gap with Tencent has widened in line with capital outflows from South Africa, where Naspers has its primary listing, Van Dijk said. It will be close to \u201cimpossible\u201d for Naspers to move its listing from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, which has also been protecting the company from hostile takeovers, he said.<\/p>\n

Van Dijk has resisted pressure to sell Naspers\u2019 holding in Tencent, a suggestion that has surfaced over the years.<\/p>\n

The Cape Town-based company, which also owns Africa\u2019s largest pay-TV business and newspapers, has been focusing on e-commerce and is now among the world\u2019s largest investors in the space, backing ventures from Mail.Ru Group in Russia to iFood in Brazil.<\/p>\n

Naspers plans to accelerate the \u201cpath to profitability\u201d of its e-commerce businesses and sees potential for initial public offerings of companies in its portfolio, Van Dijk said. The company could become purely focused on internet businesses, which now make up about 77% of revenues, \u201cquite quickly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not think five years from now people will be picking up newspapers anymore or watching linear TV,\u201d Van Dijk said. The company is looking at the digitalization of these more traditional business units over the next two years.<\/p>\n

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Read: US law firm to investigate Naspers<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Naspers chief executive officer Bob Van Dijk said Africa\u2019s largest company will consider \u201cstructural options\u201d if the value gap with its stake in Tencent Holdings persists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":213869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[107],"class_list":["post-216253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-naspers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216253"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216255,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216253\/revisions\/216255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}