JOHANNESBURG – The largest listed company in Africa, Naspers Ltd, is grappling with an unusual problem: it has made an incredibly good investment that has now become a headache.
In 2001, Naspers acquired a third of Tencent Holdings Ltd. bought, years before the manager of the WeChat messaging program became China’s most valuable listed company. The stake itself is now worth more than $ 100 billion more than the market value of Naspers, despite the other lucrative ventures in areas such as online advertising, payments and retail.
The difference has left Naspers executives puzzled as to how they can unlock shareholder value without recruiting one of the world’s most successful technology companies. The problem has grown as the gap has widened to new levels over the past year as the coronavirus-induced rallies in tech stocks boosted the valuations of Tencent and other tech companies.
“I do not think there is a senior person at group level who is not involved in thinking about this problem and working on it,” said Basil Sgourdos, chief financial officer of Naspers. explore ideas to reduce the valuation gap, but he did not want to elaborate on what options they are considering.A Issues that any successful candidate must overcome include tax, regulation, balance sheet structure and debt.
“With every idea and unpacking it, you learn something,” he said. Sgourdos said. ‘It is very valuable [intellectual property] to find the final solution. ”