Naspers, Africa's Most Valued Company
According to Wikipedia, "Naspers is a broad-based multinational internet and media group, offering services in more than 130 countries. Its principal operations are in internet communication, entertainment, gaming and e-commerce". That does not really say much when you see what this company has done. Two cases:
The standout deal is its 2001 $32 million bet on China-based digital conglomerate, Tencent. That stake today is worth $150 billion. Last month, it sold a small amount of its shares for a whopping $10 billion.
Flipkart
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This week, Naspers quietly made a cool $1.6 billion from the sale of its 11% stake in Indian e-commerce company Flipkart. This came after Walmart bought a 77% stake in Flipkart for $16 billion. Naspers first took a stake in Flipkart in 2012 and has invested a total of $616 million in it since then.
Within the last few weeks, Naspers is bringing $12 billion home to South Africa. That is an amazing story on how one company can engineer rebirth in an economy. As I noted here, Nigeria needs its Naspers.
As Naspers shifts its massive profit home to South Africa, there is no way the South African treasury will not get at least $30 billion if you have around 20% tax rate. That is a national budget for Nigeria if this had happened in our country. We need to pay more attention to venture funding to stimulate our economy.