Naspers unit sells JD.com shares, to let go of Tencent stock

Prosus sold close to US$4 billion of stock in Chinese ecommerce player JD.com that it had received from Shenzhen-headquartered Tencent.

The Dutch tech investment company and its parent firm Naspers will also divest Tencent shares to fund a long-term share repurchase program. Prosus’s stake in Tencent is over 28%.

Photo credit: Daniel Cukier

A subsidiary of the South African consumer internet group, Prosus sold about 4% of its stake – over 131 million shares – in Beijing-based JD.com. After concluding the sale on June 24 this year, Prosus collected proceeds with US$3.67 billion.

In a filing with Amsterdam-based bourse Euronext, the investment firm said it was disposing of its JD.com shares because they do not “form part of the group’s core strategic focus.”

Meanwhile, the share repurchase program is expected to “significantly increase the net asset values per share” for the two companies, said Prosus and Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk.

“It will also rebalance our asset base towards our fast-growing non-Tencent assets, whose value we expect to increase over time, while retaining exposure to Tencent’s significant value creation potential,” he added.

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