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Naspers ends Thursday stronger, but it's 'still early days', say analysts

Naspers [JSE:NPN] appeared to have a good day on Thursday, gaining over 2%, while recently unbundled internet holding company Prosus lost almost 3% in its second day of trade.

Naspers owns more than 70% of Prosus, while Prosus holds Naspers' stake in internet giant Tencent and has stakes in companies such as global online selling platform OLX, the German food delivery group Delivery Hero, the Indian online food-delivery business Swiggy, the Indian online travel site MakeMyTrip.

Naspers started Thursday at R2 485.01 and closed 2.23% stronger at R2 526.16. Meanwhile Prosus, which surprised markets on its first day of trade on Wednesday with a primary listing on the Amsterdam stock exchange and a secondary listing on the Johannesburg stock exchange, seemed to correct on Thursday.

Prosus opened at R1 205.77 on Wednesday morning - higher than the 58.70 euros (around R950) "reference price" - and closed slightly lower at R1 202.65, Fin24 previously reported.

Market analyst Simon Brown told Fin24 that there appeared "too much" of a push for Prosus on Wednesday, but there now seems to be a correction as it closed 2.92% lower at R1 167.5 on Thursday afternoon. Brown expects there will be more buying of Naspers shares over the next few days.

However, Naspers shareholders were allocated a stake of around 27% in Prosus on Wednesday morning, and they have until Friday midday to decide whether they want to convert these shares to Prosus shares, or get more Naspers shares, Fin24 previously reported. These shareholders will receive the new Prosus or Naspers shares on Monday.

"We may see more selling in the Prosus space next week," Brown said as the process closes.

He added that as things "settle down", the shares should be moving in sync; that is to say, for a 1% gain in Prosus there should be a 1% gain in Naspers because of its stake in the former.

Similarly, trading specialist at Purple Group Musa Makoni noted that it is still "early days" to make calls on investor sentiment on the two entities.

He expects there will be more movement when the Naspers shareholders receive their Prosus shares.

*Fin24 is part of Media24, which is a subsidiary of Naspers.

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