Prosus to buy up to R82bn in its own, Naspers shares

Prosus said on Friday it would purchase up to $5 billion in its own and parent Naspers shares, as part of efforts to narrow a discount between its share price and underlying assets.

Prosus said it would buy-back up to $1.37 billion of its own stock and up to $3.63 billion of Naspers shares in a proposed transaction it expected to launch following the release of its interim results on November 23.

“Today’s announcement marks another step in Prosus’s continuing creation of shareholder value and reflects its focus on reducing the current discount of the share price to Prosus’s net asset value over time,” it said in a statement.

Naspers has long been trying to close a discount between its stock price and that of its underlying assets, including an around 30% stake in Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings . It listed Prosus, which houses that stake and other internet assets, separately in Amsterdam as part of those efforts last year.