Related News:
Naspers Plans to Buy Russia's Digital Sky to Bolster Its Internet Business
Naspers Ltd. plans to buy a 28.7 percent stake in Russia’s Digital Sky Technologies as Africa’s biggest media company bolsters its Internet business and expands outside its home market.
Naspers’s Myriad International Holdings subsidiary will pay $338 million to buy shares from existing DST investors and another $50 million for new stock in the Russian company, the Cape Town-based company said today in a statement. The unit, known as MIH, will give DST its 39.3 percent stake in Mail.ru, a Russian Internet and gaming company that the Moscow-based company controls.
The South African company has added Internet businesses domestically and in Brazil, Russia and Poland in the past year. Naspers said on June 29 that it will continue to expand by adding sales at existing businesses and through acquisitions, focused on the Internet, where the industry showed “bold growth” in emerging markets.
“From a strategy perspective it looks good,” Godwill Chahwahwa, an analyst with Coronation Fund Managers which holds shares in Naspers, said in an interview. “We are bullish on the Russian market, there is still opportunity for most of DST business to grow.”
The agreement simplifies shareholdings between Naspers and DST, and the Russian company will hold 99.9 percent of Mail.ru after the deal closes.
Social Networking
DST is one of the largest Internet companies in the Russian-speaking market, according to the statement. DST bought ICQ, the largest instant messaging service in Russian-speaking markets, in April for $188 million from AOL Inc. The Moscow- based company also owns a stake in social networking site Facebook Inc.
In April, Tencent Holdings Ltd., in which Naspers holds 35 percent, paid $300 million for a 10.3 percent stake in DST.
Antonie Roux, the head of Naspers’ Internet division, said in a June 29 interview that “there is a land grab going on for e-commerce” and that “we have spent a lot of time and energy in the last two years” to acquire businesses in Eastern Europe and start services in “all the adjacent markets” to Russia.
DST also controls social network Forticom and has stakes in vKontakte, another Russian social network service. In December, a DST-led group invested $180 million in Zynga Game Network Inc., whose online games such as “Mafia Wars” and “FarmVille” are played by more than 120 million people.
To contact the reporter on this story: Nicky Smith in Johannesburg at nsmith38@bloomberg.net
Rate These Stories
Rate this Page