Holding companies have traditionally struggled to narrow the gap between their net asset value and the price at which its stocks are trading on bourses. Naspers*, and subsidiary Prosus, are no different.
In a two-pronged move to address the substantial discount at which Naspers and Prosus are trading to their technology-laden assets, the companies announced a share buyback in November last year. By the end of June, Prosus has bought back in aggregate $1.37bn of its own ordinary N shares (or 0.73% of its total outstanding shares) and $3.63bn in Naspers ordinary N shares (or 3.67% of its total outstanding shares). These were sweet windfalls to investors.
In addition, Prosus announced a share swap on 12 May where it aims to acquire more than 45% of Naspers’ outstanding shares in exchange for its own. The rationale, in chief, is to increase Prosus’ free-float on the Johannesburg and Amsterdam stock exchanges and reduce Naspers’ weighting in South African stock indices where it holds a dominant position. Prosus offers 2.27443 of its own N shares for each one Naspers N share.
This story is from the 9 July 2021 edition of Finweek English.
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This story is from the 9 July 2021 edition of Finweek English.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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