Tencent's major shareholders disclosed the specific gains from reducing their holdings in Tencent. On November 29, local time, Prosus, the major shareholder of Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) and the Dutch subsidiary of the South African Naspers Group, disclosed its latest performance report. Data showed that the company’s consolidated revenue in the first half of the fiscal year as of the end of September was US$2.56 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13%; core income increased by 118% year-on-year to US$2 billion. According to forecasts, Prosus' core earnings per share will decline by 21% to 28% in fiscal 2024.
In addition, Prosus disclosed that it sold approximately 1% of Tencent's shares in the first half of the fiscal year (from April to September this year), reducing its shareholding from 26.2% to approximately 25%, earning US$4 billion in proceeds. Prosus said that the relevant cash withdrawal amount will be used to repurchase its own company's shares. Between October and November 24, Prosus further sold approximately 26.22 million Tencent shares, with proceeds reaching US$1 billion.
Prosus's plan to reduce its holdings in Tencent dates back to June 27 last year. According to Tencent's announcement, Prosus and Naspers announced that they will launch a long-term, open-ended repurchase plan to increase the group's net asset value per share. The repurchase funds will be obtained through the orderly and small sale of Tencent shares by the Naspers Group. Naspers estimates that the average number of Tencent shares sold each day will not exceed 3%-5% of Tencent's average daily trading volume. At that time, people close to Tencent told The Paper that according to public data, the main purpose of Prosus and Napspers was probably to solve the serious inversion problem between their market value and asset value.
According to foreign media reports in July, Prosus has said that it expects its proportion of Tencent shares to decrease by 2 to 3 percentage points each year, to about 24%-25% by the end of this year.
Public information shows that Naspers, which has a history of more than 100 years, started in the newspaper and publishing industry and has now developed into a South African media giant and Internet investment giant. Its most notable investment was its investment in Tencent, which was just born, at the beginning of this century. In 20 years, the investment income has exceeded 7,000 times, making it one of the most profitable transactions in the history of venture capital.
In 2019, Naspers spun off Prosus. In addition to holding shares in Tencent, Prosus also holds shares in Russia's Mail.ru, US online retailer Letgo and German food delivery company DeliveryHero. At one time, it also held shares in Flipkart, India's largest e-commerce company.
On November 15, Tencent Holdings released its third quarter financial report, which showed that total revenue was 154.63 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10%; net profit (Non-IFRS) was 44.92 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 39%.
As of press time, Tencent reported HK$321.8, up 1.51%.