Naspers plans to spin off its internet businesses, including a $133B stake in Tencent and investments in Mail.ru, Delivery Hero, and Swiggy, in a Dutch listing
- Bulk of the company will be listed on Euronext Amsterdam — Move is part of plan to cut gap with value of Tencent holding
Context & Ripple Effects
Naspers has spent years wrestling with the same problem this spin-off addresses: its market value sits far below the worth of its assets, dominated by a Tencent stake bought for $32M in 2001 and now worth ~$133B. The ~$10.6B sale of 2% of the Tencent stake in 2018 was an earlier attempt to surface that value — and to fund new bets like the additional 13% of Delivery Hero acquired from Rocket Internet.
Listing the internet holdings on Euronext Amsterdam is the structural answer: separate the portfolio from the South African parent so investors can price it directly. The related coverage shows how that story unfolds — the new vehicle opens at €76 on Amsterdam's exchange, valuing it at €123B.
First-order effects
- Naspers shareholders get a separately traded vehicle holding the Tencent stake plus Mail.ru, Delivery Hero, and Swiggy positions, with the bulk listed on Euronext Amsterdam rather than Johannesburg.
- The move puts a public price on the portfolio immediately — the Amsterdam opening values it at €123B, a direct test of whether the discount to the Tencent holding narrows.
Second-order effects
- The listing gives Naspers a European-listed currency for portfolio moves, which it uses to prune: Prosus later exits non-core positions like the ~$4B sale of its JD.com stake, citing strategic focus.
- As one of the largest foreign holders of Chinese tech, the spun-off entity becomes a visible seller when regulatory anxiety peaks — part of the wave where early investors including SoftBank and Berkshire trim Chinese giants.
Third-order effects
- The structural fix doesn't end the discount problem: five years on, CEO Fabricio Bloisi is still overhauling culture and pay in search of growth beyond the ~$115B Tencent stake — evidence that relisting alone doesn't convert a holding company into an operating business.
- If the pattern holds, mega-holdings built on single early bets face a choice between perpetual discount management and active recycling of stakes into new growth — with the Amsterdam listing as the template other concentrated holders may copy.
The trend: Tech holding companies whose value concentrates in one early bet are unbundling into separately listed vehicles to escape conglomerate discounts — then discovering the discount follows the structure.