A number one tech investor’s view of the world
Prosus, the worldwide funding arm of South Africa’s Naspers, is a world tech colossus, with a $250 billion empire that features meals supply, on-line studying, e-commerce firms — and a roughly 28 % stake in Tencent, the Chinese language web large.
That provides Prosus a novel vantage on the worldwide enterprise panorama. The corporate’s C.E.O., Bob van Dijk, sat down with DealBook to debate dealing with the pandemic and financial slowdowns, China and extra. Listed here are highlights from that dialog.
On shifting financial realities: Lots of Prosus’s enterprise strains — together with on-line restaurant and grocery supply, e-commerce, on-line funds and on-line schooling — flourished through the pandemic. However whilst coronavirus restrictions had been lifted, these divisions didn’t actually endure the kind of sharp snapback that pandemic darlings like Zoom and Peloton did, in response to Mr. van Dijk. Of on-line meals supply, he mentioned, “You don’t have that very same surge of recent clients, however you keep these clients that you simply’ve obtained and so they’re rising on a regular basis into high-frequency and high-value ones.”
However as economies throughout the globe decelerate, Prosus has urged its portfolio firms to focus much less on explosive development and extra on turning a revenue. (Value-cutting has prolonged to Prosus itself.) That activity has grow to be considerably simpler as others have pulled again from free-spending bids for development, he added: “There’s much less irrational competitors.”
On China: Tencent suffered considered one of its hardest years final 12 months, as regulators launched a wide-ranging crackdown on the tech sector and the pandemic sapped the Chinese language financial system.
Mr. Van Dijk mentioned Tencent’s fortunes had been enhancing as authorities eased their restrictions on the sector and ended their zero-Covid coverage (although he largely averted discussing how that course of performed out). He mentioned he had noticed “an much more pro-business shift in tone” from Beijing.
On investing: Prosus introduced 69 offers over the previous two years, in response to PitchBook, however financial shifts, notably an increase in rates of interest that’s made financing costlier, have modified its strategy. “We’ve mentioned no to extra issues than we beforehand had,” Mr. van Dijk mentioned. How way more selective has Prosus grow to be? “I believe we mentioned sure to about one in 100 alternatives earlier than. It’s in all probability extra like one in 200 or so now.”
