Prosus has decided you can have too much of a good thing. The Dutch ecommerce group plans to sell part of its $134bn stake in Chinese internet company Tencent in order to buy back its own shares. The sale revokes an earlier pledge to hold on to the stake.
Prosus is controlled by Naspers, South Africa’s answer to Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank. Naspers garnered an early mover reputation in Chinese tech, buying a large stake in Tencent nearly two decades ago for just $32mn.
One unfortunate effect of Tencent’s success since then is Prosus’s steep — over 50 per cent — discount to net asset value. Before Monday’s rally, its stake in Tencent exceeded the market value of Prosus itself.