The great Naspers tax nightmare
The tax bill CFO Basil Sgourdos faced after selling share options could explain the group’s cross-holding contortions
By some accounts, the reason Naspers tied itself up in cross-holding knots in its attempts to reduce the yawning gap between its share price and the value of its investments, primarily Tencent, was the need to deal as efficiently as possible with a hefty tax headache.
Just how significant those tax challenges might be was demonstrated recently when Naspers/Prosus chief financial officer Basil Sgourdos had to sell Naspers shares worth R93m to pay the tax bill created by exercising 45,995 share options. The total value of that chunk of options was R155m and they generated a pre-tax profit of about R75m for Sgourdos. ..
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