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Naspers, the global internet group led by South African billionaire Koos Bekker, experienced a significant decline in earnings during its 2023 fiscal year, which ended on March 31, 2023.
According to the company’s recently published annual report, its profit after tax plummeted by over 46 percent during the period under review, dropping from $18.54 billion in 2022 to $9.95 billion in 2023.
The decline can be attributed not only to the decrease in gains from the partial disposal of equity-accounted investments, which includes the sale of its stake in Chinese multinational technology conglomerate Tencent, but also to the impact of dilution losses on equity-accounted investments.
Gains from the partial disposal of equity-accounted investments declined from $12.43 billion in 2022 to $7.62 billion in 2023. Concurrently, dilution losses on equity-accounted investments increased from $18.54 billion to $9.95 billion.
In a strategic move aimed at unlocking value from its assets, Naspers entered into an agreement in October 2022 to sell its shareholding in Avito to Kismet Capital Group (Kismet) for a total cash consideration of $2.4 billion.
The sale of Avito’s stake to Kismet Group, a private investment group with a history of investing in technology and telecommunications businesses in Russia, resulted in a gain on the disposal of the subsidiary totaling $568 million. This gain includes the reclassification of the accumulated foreign currency translation gain of $202 million.
Naspers, a multinational investment holding company headquartered in Cape Town, South Africa, and led by billionaire businessman Bekker, boasts a diverse portfolio encompassing publishing, online retail, and venture capital investments in the consumer internet sector.
Bekker, now worth $2.4 billion, embarked on his entrepreneurial journey in 1985 when he founded M-Net, a pay-television company that later transformed into MultiChoice.
In 1997, he assumed the role of CEO at Naspers, where his strategic leadership played a pivotal role in the company’s success.
The majority of Bekker’s fortune stems from his 0.85-percent stake in Naspers and another 0.72-percent stake in Prosus, the Amsterdam-based investment group to which he made significant contributions.
