Tencent Should Be Split Up
The value of its fintech unit, anchored by a massive payments business, isn’t getting the recognition it deserves
How to squeeze a couple of billion dollars out of Tencent.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
China’s most ubiquitous company is hiding one of its most valuable assets. That needs to change.
Tencent Holdings Ltd., best known for the WeChat messenger that almost everyone in the country uses, has a growing fintech business. But it’s getting overshadowed by the games and social media divisions. By spinning it off into a new company, with a move to a separate listing, management could unlock as much as $230 billion in value. That would make the entity China’s fourth-largest listed company and the world’s sixth-biggest financial services firm.