Earlier this morning, Prosus listed publicly on the Amsterdam Euronext exchange, as well as the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).
If you’ve never heard of the company, you’re not alone, with CNBC saying that “a $100 billion tech company you’ve never heard of just listed in Europe”.
We will revisit that overseas look at Prosus later, but for now, let’s stick with BusinessLIVE, and news that Prosus “soared”.
The company is a subsidiary, or spinoff, of Naspers, which meant the listing also affected Naspers’ share price.
That’s Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk above, looking rather chuffed, by the way:
The share price of Africa’s largest company by market value, Naspers, fell almost a third on Wednesday morning as its new subsidiary Prosus jumped by a similar amount as it listed on Amsterdam’s Euronext exchange.
Prosus jumped 29% on the Euronext at its open, Bloomberg reported, while Naspers fell 31.57% to R2,401.99 as of 9.30am.
Prosus includes Naspers’s prized stake in Chinese tech giant Tencent, and several businesses in industries such as online food delivery and advertising.
Naspers opted to list Prosus, in which it holds a 73% stake, to ease its dominance on the JSE, and hopes it will help to address the continued trading of its share price at a discount.
Yesterday, indicative pricing by the Amsterdam Euronext exchange saw Prosus shares value at €58,70 per share, which implied a market capitalisation of €95,3 billion, or around the $105 billion mark.
For more of the nitty-gritty of what this means, you can also see this Moneyweb article, with this graph showing the respective movements of the shares on the JSE thus far today (correct until 11:30AM):
Let’s head back to that CNBC article from earlier:
“The listing of Prosus is an exciting step forwards for the group, giving global technology investors direct access to our unique and attractive portfolio of international consumer internet businesses,” Naspers and Prosus Group CEO Bob van Dijk said in a press release Wednesday.
Prosus is not a consumer internet business itself, meaning it doesn’t offer digital services under its own brand like Facebook or Alibaba, for example. Instead, it invests in a portfolio of global internet firms in sectors ranging from payments and fintech (financial technology) to food delivery.
The group’s best-known investment is a 31% stake in Chinese tech giant Tencent, a gaming titan and owner of the hugely popular messaging app WeChat. Naspers made a $32 million investment in Tencent in 2001, a bet now worth $130 billion.
Under the new structure, Prosus will hold Nasper’s Tencent stake, as well as positions in other firms like Russian social media company Mail.ru Group and German food delivery service Delivery Hero. Naspers will remain a majority owner of the new company.
OK, this is all rather technical stuff.
You can find further info on Fin24 here and here if you’re still keen to dig deeper.
[sources:cnbc&businesslive&moneyweb]
