Widening the gap

22 March 2018 By Robyn Mak Follow @mak_robyn

The South African group is offloading shares worth up to $11 bln in the Chinese giant. But it’s keeping the remaining 31 pct for at least three years, and will invest the proceeds. Shareholders have little reason to give it any more credit for its highly profitable Tencent bet.

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Naspers on March 22 announced it is cutting its stake in China’s Tencent by as much as 2 percentage points in a deal that could raise up to $10.6 billion for the South African media and e-commerce group.

Naspers plans to sell up to 190 million Tencent shares via an accelerated bookbuild. This would reduce its stake in the Chinese internet giant to 31.2 percent from 33.2 percent. It plans to use the proceeds to fund growth in its e-commerce unit.

The company said it would not sell any more Tencent shares for at least three years.

Naspers shares were down 6 percent at 3257 rand by 1350 GMT on March 22. Tencent’s Hong Kong-listed shares earlier closed down 5 percent at HK$439.

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