‘Naspers a strategic investor, we don’t like to run local business’

NEW DELHI: South Africa’s Naspers has deployed $2 billion in India’s digital ecosystem with bulk of that investment flowing in over the last few years, its chief executive Bob van Dijk said, signalling the increased capital allocation from the group since 2016 for the local market.
In New Delhi to host the company’s global summit for the first time here, Dijk said India presently contributes 5% to the conglomerate’s overall revenue, which stands at $20 billion but the market is growing at a fast clip.After selling its stake in Flipkart fully to Walmart and taking home $2.2 billion, Naspers’ portfolio is presently valued at $5 billion, as per the group.
Naspers has been aggressively investing in food-delivery app, Swiggy, which is expected to raise a new financing round at over $2 billion in valuation. Dijk had said in an earlier interview with TOI that the sector resembles the Indian e-commerce industry of 2005.
“We are not a fund and don’t have to necessarily exit to clock returns, in fact, we prefer never exiting companies that we invest in. What we do is support companies for a long, long time,” said Dijk. An anomaly was Flipkart where it sold its entire holding with Walmart taking almost 80% in the etailer, Naspers did not see a role for itself on the online retailer’s board post the transaction. “Naspers is a strategic investor but we don’t like to run local businesses. We merged Goibibo, which was partially owned by Tencent and Naspers, with MakeMyTrip, but we don’t like to take control even if we own companies. Post the merger, Deep Kalra, founder of the travel booking site took over as the CEO of the combined entity.”
Naspers, which is also an operator of internet businesses, runs PayU, its payments platform, which bought Citrus Pay two years ago and online classified platform, OLX.
Detailing the conglomerate’s performance, Basil Sgourdos, the group CFO & financial director at Naspers, said that the group had grown from having $1billion revenue and $1billion market capitalisation twenty years ago to a $100 billion valuation at $20 billion revenue as of last financial year. “Our core headline earnings grew by 76% year-on-year to $2.5 billion and we want to reinvest that in fast growing companies,” Sgourdos said. Naspers, which has in all pumped $9.5 billion across its portfolio firms, is valued at $140 billion, he added.