Naspers discount increase defies management’s plan
The group's investor roadshow in New York sends shares down 2.1% as group aims to bring e-commerce to profitability
Naspers’s discount to net asset value significantly increased in the week after management told investors in New York of plans to reverse this trend. The group’s shares lost 8.5% last week — their worst weekly performance of 2017. On Monday, the internet holding company’s stock shed a further 2.1% to close at R3,240, even as shares in 34%-held Tencent gained 1.3% in Hong Kong. Last Monday, Naspers’s management team said in a roadshow in New York that the stock’s discount — at close to 40% — was "not acceptable". The discount was largely the result of capital outflows from SA and the inability of local fund houses to fill the gap, partly because of Naspers’s heavy weighting in local indices. To deal with this issue, the group was working on bringing its e-commerce business to profitability and improving financial disclosures and shareholder engagements. It was also aiming to access "new pools of capital" through its American depositary receipt (ADR) programmes. "There has been very a...
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