Naspers Ltd agreed to pay €660mn ($775mn) to boost its stake in Germany’s Delivery Hero AG as Africa’s biggest company increases its exposure to the online food-delivery market.
The Cape Town-based media and technology business will buy stock from Rocket Internet SE at €29.50 a share, it said in a statement yesterday. That’s a discount of 12% based on Wednesday’s closing price, making the South African company the biggest investor with a stake of 24%.
The deal strengthens Naspers’s position in internet food delivery, with Delivery Hero sitting alongside iFood in Brazil and Swiggy of India in the company’s portfolio. Naspers has become one of the world’s largest investors in e-commerce ventures as it tries to build on the success of its early stage investment in Chinese technology giant Tencent Holdings Ltd, which is now worth about $136bn. It’s also Africa’s largest pay-TV provider.
“It’s another company in the developing world portfolio and reinforces the value sitting in Naspers,” Michael Treherne, a money manager at Johannesburg-based Vestact, said by phone.
Naspers shares fell 0.5% to 2,862 rand as of 9:10am in Johannesburg, valuing the company at 1.26tn rand ($92bn). Rocket rose 3.5% to €21.38 in Frankfurt, a three-month high, while Delivery Hero fell 0.7%.
Rocket, a Berlin-based startup factory, will retain a 13% shareholding in Delivery Hero and “continues to participate in a large way,” chief executive officer Oliver Samwer said on a call with reporters. The company backed the food service’s successful June initial public offering in Frankfurt.
Delivery Hero competes with app-based takeout services including Just Eat Plc, GrubHub Inc and Takeaway.com and operates in more than 40 countries.
Rocket also reported improving group profitability and smaller second-quarter operating losses at key startups including Global Fashion Group. The successful IPO of Delivery Hero came as a boost after its other big investment, food-box startup HelloFresh, shelved listing plans in 2015. http://172.17.99.108/newspress/app/article_publishing/display_art_sec.php?server=np&fetch_type=article&a_id=128234%3Csep%3E197928&a_sec=image&a_lan=en&img_id=197928&image_resize_type=phpthumb&dynamic_creation=1&activate_yellow_flag=&a7x=1&user_id=34&sf_id=197928
The deal strengthens Naspers’s position in internet food delivery, with Delivery Hero sitting alongside iFood in Brazil and Swiggy of India in the company’s portfolio
