GLOBAL consumer internet group Prosus and parent Naspers' share price slipped yesterday in spite of announcing the successful implementation of the capital restructure and share exchange offer between them.
Despite initially drawing criticism from some of Nasper's institutional shareholders about the complexity and reasons for the new cross-shareholding structure, chief executive of the two groups Bob van Dijk said yesterday: “We are pleased with the outcome of the Prosus voluntary share exchange offer. The transaction increases the size of the Prosus free float and more than doubles its ownership of the group's outstanding global consumer internet portfolio.”
Prosus' share price fell 2.36 percent to R1 278.17 by mid-morning yesterday, while the price of its about 30 percent held China-based internet group investment Tencent, fell 3.49 percent in line with generally lower shares in Asia.
Naspers' share price was down by 3.39 percent to R2 712 at the same time. Naspers and Prosus generally rise and fall in tandem with the share price of Tencent, which is due to release its interim results later this week. One of the reasons for the capital restructure was to reduce the discount that Naspers and Prosus trade at, in relation to the value of their underlying assets,
Van Dijk said the restructure would also help to rebalance the oversized weight of Naspers on the JSE – it remains the biggest South Africa domiciled group on the bourse – while it preserves its control of Prosus.
“The fundamentals of our businesses are strong and we will continue to invest in our core segments and ventures. We have a robust pipeline and remain focused on taking the right actions to unlock value for our shareholders,” he said.
Following the capital restructure and share exchange offer, Naspers holds 56.92 percent of the issued Prosus ordinary shares N, while Prosus holds 49 percent of the issued Naspers N ordinary shares.
BUSINESS REPORT