By Najat Kantouar
Naspers expects its first-half performance to be boosted by its investment in Chinese technology giant Tencent, together with accelerated growth, improved profitability in its Ecommerce segment and other equity-accounted investments.
The South African investor--which owns a 26% stake in Tencent Holdings through Prosus--said Monday that for the six months ended Sept. 30 core headline earnings per share are expected to increase between 87.2% and 93.8% to between 396 U.S. cents and 426 cents.
Headline EPS are expected to be between 321 cents to 341 cents. Both figures are on a continuing operation basis and exclude the gains relating to the selldown of Tencent and impairment charges.
The group said it still expects to deliver sustained growth helped by investment in AI tools in its technology ecosystem.
Separately Naspers' Amsterdam-listed subsidiary company Prosus--which owns a roughly $114 billion stake in Tencent--said it expects core headline EPS for the same period to rise 84%-93% to between 64 cents and 71 cents. Headline EPS are expected to increase between 93%-102% to 50 cents to 55 cents.
Naspers spun out its international tech investments to form Prosus and listed the company in Amsterdam in 2019 in an attempt to reduce the valuation gap.
Prosus and Naspers have been buying back their own stock through an open-ended program that they fund through small sales of Tencent stock.
In early European trading, Prosus shares are up 2.2%, or 0.84 euros, at 38.59 euros. They are currently 43% higher over the year to date.
Write to Najat Kantouar at najat.kantouar@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 18, 2024 03:37 ET (08:37 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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