A windfall with provisos

The major benefit will come from investors being able to reference the listed Multichoice Group for a price

Even before last week’s Multichoice announcement, the Phuthuma Nathi (PN) BEE scheme was considered one of the country’s most generous. The dramatic, but not unexpected, announcement that Naspers would distribute its Multichoice holding to Naspers shareholders as soon as it has sorted out all the regulatory obligations, mentioned a figure of R12bn in value creation for PN shareholders.

The potential benefits of the unbundling process will considerably enhance this generosity, and in the process make other BEE offerings, such as Vodacom’s Yeboyethu, MTN’S Zakhele and Sasol’s Inzalo, look a little tight-fisted.

Naspers spokesperson Meloy Horn says ordinary dividends paid to PN shareholders since inception amounted to R6.2bn and the capital gain to an additional R5.7bn.

Naspers offered eligible black people an indirect interest of 15% in Multichoice SA in September 2006. The offer, which was pitched at R10 a share, was three times oversubscribed. About 120,000 applicants received the 45-million shares on offer. A few months later an additional 7.5% stake was offered to applicants who had not received their full allocation. This block of shares is now referred to as PN2 while the earlier allocation is referred to as PN1.

The original 22.5% stake in Multichoice was reduced to 20% when Multichoice shares were issued to fund the acquisition of the remaining 40% interest in M-net/supersport in 2007.

At the end of the first day of over-thecounter trading in December 2011 the share price was at R28, a significant advance on the R10 issue price but way off the R120 most analysts had been expecting.

In recent years the shares have traded as high as R180, but they are more often seen stagnating