Bob van Dijk and his management team would have to be incompetent on a globally unprecedented scale to justify the opprobrium being hurled their way, writes Ann Crotty. While he’s undoubtedly not worth the billions of rands coming his way by dint of the generous allocation of Naspers shares mindlessly awarded to the CEO, he cannot realistically be held responsible for the R400bn (give or take a few billion on any one day) valuation gap between Naspers’s market cap and its 34% stake in Tencent. Even the prospect of unending cash-guzzling by its eCommerce operations wouldn’t fully justify the huge discount. Similarly, the idea that Naspers is free to unbundle this extremely valuable investment may also be way off the mark. Naspers has said there are no restrictions on its ownership of Tencent. However, there might be restrictions on its ability to re-arrange how it manages that ownership, including unbundling it or selling it off. Given Tencent’s importance in the lives of hundreds of...
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