Prosus nets R58-billion in JD.com stake sale

An arm of South African Internet giant Naspers sold almost US$4-billion worth of stock in JD.com that it got as dividends from investee Tencent, saying the e-commerce firm didn’t fit with its broader strategy.

Naspers subsidiary Prosus sold more than 131.8 million shares in JD it got from Tencent Holdings, about a 4% stake in the online retailer, Prosus said in a statement. “JD.com does not form part of the group’s core strategic focus,” it said in a filing on Monday.

Tencent, China’s largest social media company, said in December it planned to distribute its stock in JD.com as dividends to shareholders, a surprise retreat from the e-commerce firm after Beijing moved in 2021 to curtail the power of tech monopolies. The stock was worth about $16-billion at the time.

Prosus completed the sale on 24 June, netting aggregate proceeds of about $3.67-billion (R58.3-billion at the time of writing).  — Coco Liu and Zheping Huang, (c) 2022 Bloomberg LP