Naspers and its international investment vehicle Prosus together form one of the most consequential technology holding companies to have emerged from the African continent — a business that began printing newspapers in Cape Town over a century ago and today holds stakes in some of the world’s most valuable internet platforms.

About

Founded in 1915 as De Nasionale Pers, a publisher aligned with the Afrikaner nationalist press movement in the Western Cape, Naspers spent most of the twentieth century as a conventional South African media group. Its transformation into a global technology investor is largely the story of a single bet: in 2001, then-CEO Koos Bekker led a $32 million investment into a little-known Chinese messaging startup called Tencent. That stake — which at its peak represented a roughly 31 percent shareholding in one of the world’s largest companies by market capitalisation — generated returns that dwarfed anything the African media industry had seen before or since.

To manage the discount that had opened between Naspers’s own market value and the value of its Tencent holding, the group listed a new Amsterdam-based entity, Prosus N.V., on Euronext Amsterdam in 2019. Prosus became the vehicle through which international internet assets are held and traded, while Naspers remains listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and retains majority ownership of Prosus. The cross-holding structure has been a source of ongoing debate among investors and analysts, who have long argued it creates a structural discount that neither listing has fully resolved.

Bob van Dijk served as group CEO for nearly a decade before stepping down in 2023. Fabricio Bloisi, the Brazilian entrepreneur who built food-delivery giant iFood, was appointed CEO of Prosus and subsequently of Naspers, signalling a shift toward operational intensity over pure financial holding.

Sector and competitive position

Naspers and Prosus operate as an internet and media holding group, competing in the same conceptual space as SoftBank’s Vision Fund, Alphabet’s venture arms, and IAC/InterActiveCorp — large pools of capital seeking outsized returns from technology platforms at various stages of maturity. Within Africa specifically, Naspers remains the continent’s largest company by market capitalisation, a position that reflects the Tencent windfall rather than purely domestic earnings. The group’s competitive advantage lies in its willingness to take long-duration positions in emerging-market internet companies at early stages, a strategy that produced Tencent and, to a lesser extent, Mail.ru (since divested). Its main challenge is replicating that success in a more competitive global venture landscape where valuations have compressed and emerging-market tech has faced significant headwinds since 2021.

Operations and footprint

The group’s operational footprint spans more than 90 countries through its portfolio companies, though its own corporate offices are concentrated in Amsterdam (Prosus headquarters), Cape Town (Naspers headquarters), and a network of regional investment and management hubs. Employee headcount across the consolidated group runs into the tens of thousands when portfolio companies such as iFood in Brazil, Swiggy in India, and OLX Group’s various classifieds platforms are included. In Africa, Naspers retains media and e-commerce interests, including the PayU payments business and legacy print and digital media assets in South Africa through Media24, which publishes titles including Netwerk24 and a range of consumer magazines.

Products and brands

The Prosus portfolio is organised around several core verticals. In food delivery, iFood dominates the Brazilian market and Swiggy is a leading platform in India. In classifieds and marketplaces, OLX Group operates platforms across Eastern Europe, Latin America, and parts of Africa and Asia under the OLX, Avito, and related brands. PayU provides payment processing and consumer credit services across multiple emerging markets including India, Poland, and several African countries. The group also holds interests in edtech through Stack Overflow (acquired in 2021) and has made investments in health-tech and fintech verticals. Tencent — the crown jewel — is the parent of WeChat, one of the world’s most used super-apps, and a major force in gaming through titles and studios globally.

Financial situation

Naspers is listed on the JSE and Prosus on Euronext Amsterdam, giving the group access to both African institutional capital and European equity markets. According to the most recent annual report, the group has pursued a sustained share buyback programme funded in part by the gradual reduction of its Tencent stake — a strategy designed to narrow the persistent holding-company discount. Industry analysts note that the group moved to a position of e-commerce profitability at the trading profit level in its 2024 financial year, a milestone management had targeted for several years. Debt levels have been a point of scrutiny given the capital-intensive nature of food delivery and fintech investments, though the group’s Tencent holding provides substantial balance-sheet support. Revenue trajectory across the e-commerce portfolio has reflected broader emerging-market consumer pressures, with growth moderating compared to the pandemic-era surge.

Recent developments

The appointment of Fabricio Bloisi as group CEO in 2023 was the most significant leadership change in years and has been followed by a more operationally focused strategy, with Bloisi drawing on his experience scaling iFood to push portfolio companies toward profitability and efficiency. The group has continued its Tencent sell-down programme, using proceeds to fund buybacks rather than new large acquisitions. Media24 announced significant restructuring including retrenchments and the closure of several print titles, reflecting the structural decline of South African print media. Prosus also exited its stake in the Russian classifieds business Avito as part of a broader withdrawal from Russian-linked assets following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, a divestment that crystallised both financial and reputational considerations. The group has signalled increased focus on artificial intelligence integration across its portfolio companies as a productivity and product-enhancement lever.

Outlook

The central strategic question for Naspers and Prosus remains whether the group can build a second engine of value creation beyond Tencent. Under Bloisi’s leadership, the near-term priority appears to be consolidating e-commerce profitability, deepening AI capabilities across iFood, Swiggy, and PayU, and demonstrating that the holding-company structure can generate returns for shareholders rather than simply tracking Tencent’s fortunes. Headwinds include regulatory scrutiny of large technology platforms in India and Brazil, currency volatility across emerging markets, and the ongoing challenge of the structural discount between Naspers and Prosus market values. Growth plays centre on the continued expansion of food delivery in Latin America and India, the scaling of PayU’s credit products, and selective early-stage investments in African and Southeast Asian internet markets where the group believes its emerging-market playbook still holds an edge.

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