Inside Naspers’s pointless AGM
But JSE needs to take a close look at dual-class shares before allowing more such listings
The JSE need look no further than the recent Naspers AGM if it wants to get an idea of the challenges posed by the dual-class share structures it is considering allowing for new listings. It’s like those slightly old-fashioned cooking programmes where the chef says: “And here’s one we baked earlier.”
Naspers’s dual-class structure has been baked into the JSE since it listed in the early 1990s. Remarkably, until 2018, few investors realised just how much power the structure — hyped up after Jannie Mouton’s takeover attack — placed in the hands of the directors. In particular those of Koos Bekker and Cobus Stofberg, who control most of the high-voting Naspers A shares...
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