Buying a third of Tencent today would cost you just shy of $47bn. World conquest – or at the very least, conquering the flickering phone screens of 1.2bn people – does not come cheap. Unless you travelled back in time to 2001.
That is when Naspers bought the stake for $32m. A canny purchase. In just the past five years, Tencent shares have returned 570 per cent. Equity in Naspers, listed in Johannesburg and the owner of media assets worldwide, is up 550 per cent, giving it the largest market value of any African company. That number: $48bn – roughly the value of the Tencent stake.
But Naspers owns a lot of other businesses, too. It is dragging a massive holding company discount behind it. Tencent is an internet conglomerate itself, of course.