Naspers eyes Europe listing

MAIN PRIORITIES: NOW INVESTING IN CLASSIFIEDS, FINTECH AND FOOD IN SA, INDIA, RUSSIA

aspers, the JSE’s most valuable company, will prioritise investments in classifieds, financial technology and food – activities that it could possibly hive off with separate share listings in the right circumstances, CEO Bob van Dijk says.

The focus on classifieds includes AutoTrader in SA and global online marketplace OLX, which van Dijk says has more monthly users than Twitter, at 350 million.

He sees big opportunities for fintech in India and Latin America, where it can be used to link the unbanked with savings, credit and payment services.

The food market, meanwhile, will “drastically change” within a decade, with fewer people preparing their own meals, instead ordering in, he said.

Naspers, which has dominated the JSE Top 40 Index through its 31% stake in Chinese internet company Tencent, plans to split its business into two units, putting its offshore assets in one that’s so far called Newco. It’ll have a primary listing on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange, possibly in the second half of this year, and a secondary listing in Johannesburg.

“We think it’s a big step, but it certainly doesn’t preclude us from thinking about those kinds of actions,” said Van Dijk, referring to potential separate listings for classifieds, fintech and food.

The Netherlands listing may help alleviate concerns that Naspers’s shares are trading below what its assets are worth due to the difference in value of its Tencent holding – about R1.9 trillion – and the entirety of Naspers at only about R1.4 trillion.

Newco, which Naspers expects to be Europe’s largest listed global consumer internet company, includes investments in Indian internet and food companies like Swiggy and MakeMyTrip, Russian internet companies Avito, Mail.Ru and OLX. Naspers has a 75% stake in Newco and 25% will be apportioned to shareholders.