South Africa’s internet behemoth Naspers announced today it has sold close to $4 billion or R63 billion worth of stock in JD.com that it received as dividends from investee Tencent. Tencent is China’s largest social media company.
Naspers said its subsidiary Prosus, though its unit MIH TC Holdings sold 131.8 million shares in JD it got from Tencent, representing 4% shareholding in the Chinese retailer.
JD.com is a leading supply chain-based technology and service provider. Its e-commerce
business includes online retail and online marketplace. In the online retail business, JD.com
acquires products from suppliers and sells them directly to customers primarily through
JD.com mobile apps and websites. In the online marketplace business, third-party merchants sell products to customers primarily through JD.com mobile apps and websites.
“As JD.com does not form part of the group’s core strategic focus and the JD.com shares were received by the Prosus group as a result of the JD.com in specie distribution, the Prosus group implemented an orderly disposal of the JD.com shares on the open market,” said Naspers.
“The JD.com shares were sold through an on-market orderly sales process comprising of a number of separate sales over time.”
The disposal of the shares was not subject to any conditions precedent and concluded on 24 June 2022.
Naspers netted an aggregate proceeds of approximately $3.67 billion were realised through the disposal.
