Tencent inventory: Naspers’ Prosus is planning to promote extra shares

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Prosus, a spin-off by South African media and internet investment firm Naspers, said Monday it will cut its huge stake in Tencent to fund a share repurchase program.
Tencent (TME) shares tumbled more than 4% on Tuesday in Hong Kong following the news. On Monday, Prosus (PROSY) and Naspers (NAPRF)‘ stocks soared 16% and 23% in Amsterdam and Johannesburg, respectively.

Amsterdam-based Prosus is Tencent’s biggest shareholder with a 28.8% stake worth about $128 billion.

Tencent's headquarters in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, China.
It’s not the first time Prosus has sold Tencent shares in recent years. Last April, Prosus sold a 2% stake in Tencent for $14.7 billion, the biggest block trade ever at that time. (Block trades are typically arranged directly between big institutional investors rather than on public stock exchanges.)

Prosus pledged back then that it would not sell any further Tencent shares for at least the next three years.

Since then, Tencent stock has dived 40%, hammered by China’s tech crackdown and a weakening economy. That crash wiped…

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