ON THE MONEY
STUART THEOBALD: Why not knowing who controls SA’s most valuable company matters so much
We have no idea who controls it, despite it being the most valuable company in SA with a market capitalisation of R1.6-trillion
Naspers is being stung by criticism. It is an unusual experience for the group, which has of late been celebrated as an internet wunderkind. The spark for the barrage has been the relationship between Multichoice and ANN7, the television channel founded by the Guptas to counter revelations about them and their political allies in other media outlets. Naspers has been treated with kid gloves by the rest of the media. It has an embarrassing history of collaboration with the apartheid government. While any company can reinvent itself, Naspers has persisted with an obscure controlling and ownership structure. We have no idea who controls it, despite it being the most valuable company in SA with a market capitalisation of R1.6-trillion. Seldom is this obscurantism discussed. No one wants to pick a fight with a company that buys ink by the barrel.Naspers has two different kinds of shares in issue, A shares and N shares. The N shares are listed on the JSE, but the control lies in the A sha...
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