It’s the story of a jackpot that will make newspapers around the world green. First South African press group, the company has become one of the biggest investors on the tech planet after making a fortune by betting 32 million dollars (30 million euros) on what is still only an obscure Chinese messaging service in 2001. Twenty years later, its shares in Tencent are worth more than $100 billion.
Nothing predestined the South African group to make people envious. Born in 1915 to defend the interests of white Afrikaners against Anglo-Saxon influence in South Africa, Naspers, then called Die Nasionale Pers (“The National Press”), and its flagship daily, Die Burgerconstitute one of the pillars which will carry the promoters of apartheid to power.
Leader of the Afrikaner nationalists, the first editor of Die BurgerDaniel François Malan, laid down the founding laws of the racist regime after becoming prime minister in 1948. The group only distanced itself from racist ideology after the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990.
Under pressure
Its commercial transformation started much earlier. In the 1980s, the group became a pioneer in pay television before turning to digital the following decade, under the direction of entrepreneur Koos Bekker, nicknamed the “Rupert Murdoch of Africa”. “Koos Bekker understood early on that media audiences were going to migrate to digital and he sensed the same would happen with retail”summarizes Olwethu Notshe, portfolio manager for the South African investment fund Sentio Capital.
But Tencent’s success is putting Naspers under pressure. Challenged to repeat the feat, the group multiplies investments, in emerging countries in particular. In 2006, Naspers thus bought a stake of almost 26% in the Russian group Mail.ru, which became VK, owner of the most popular social network in Russia, VKontakte. This investment, one of Naspers’ most profitable after Tencent, became radioactive after the start of the war in Ukraine.
Between February 4 and March 4, the value of Naspers shares fell by 40%. The South African pension funds that boarded the Naspers train are also drinking the cup. In November, the group finally sold its stake for $400 million to the executives of VK Group – its investment had been valued at $700 million six months earlier.
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