Naspers carves out online business

Article Excerpt

NASPERS LTD. (ADR) $51 (U.S. over-the-counter bulletin board symbol NPSNY; Shares outstanding: 2.1 billion; Market cap: $107.1 billion; Dividend yield: 0.2%; Takeover Target Rating: Lowest; www.naspers.com) is a South African media and Internet firm. The stock has its main listing on the Johannesburg exchange under the symbol NPN. The company now plans to set up its Internet operations as a separate firm. Those holdings include its 31% stake in Tencent Holdings Ltd., China’s biggest social network and online games company (it also operates the popular WeChat mobile messaging application). Naspers’ stake in Tencent is currently worth roughly $147 billion—$40 billion more than its total market cap. The new company will also hold Naspers’ investments in Russian internet platform Mail.Ru, and online food delivery businesses Delivery Hero (Germany) and Swiggy (India). Naspers will sell about 25% of this new company through an initial public offering. The new shares will trade on Euronext, the European stock exchange based in Amsterdam. The company expects to complete the IPO in…