Naspers

Founding and Afrikaner nationalism In December 1914, twelve years after the end of the Second Boer War which had devastated most of South Africa and left most Afrikaners impoverished and subject to the British Empire, and during the pro-German Maritz rebellion, a group of sixteen prominent Cape Afrikaners decided at a meeting at District Bank manager Hendrik Bergh's house in Stellenbosch to form a publishing company that would support Afrikaner nationalism in the Union of South Africa. That meeting led to Willie A. Hofmeyr founding Die Nasionale Pers Beperkt (National Press Ltd) in 1915 as a publisher of newspapers and magazines. At the time, Hofmeyr was a well-known Cape lawyer and organizer for the then-Afrikaner nationalist, conservative National Party, which would later implement the racially segregated system of apartheid in South Africa. The firm's name was commonly shortened to Naspers (Die Nasionale Pers Beperk), the contraction eventually becoming used even by the company itself. The launch of Die Nasionale Pers was financed by Jannie Marais, a prominent Stellenbosch farmer who had made a fortune in the Kimberley diamond mines and was the largest shareholder of the District Bank. founded by General J. B. M. Hertzog in January 1914. It began publishing the Afrikaans-language daily Die Burger (initially De Burger in Dutch) in June 1915, followed by its first magazine, Die Huisgenoot (initially De Huisgenoot), in 1916. Domestic expansion (1917–1986) In 1917, Die Nasionale Pers bought the weekly Bloemfontein-based Afrikaans newspaper Het Volksblad (now Volksblad), the first expansion beyond the Cape Province for the company. By 1924, the links to the National Party were formalised. M-Net proved successful and, with sister companies MultiChoice and M-Web, steadily expanded its operations both in South Africa and internationally throughout the 1990s. In 1994, Die Nasionale Pers became publicly listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in South Africa. The company also obtained a Level I American Depository Receipt listing on the London Stock Exchange. In 1998, the company formally changed its name to Naspers Limited. The investment has been referred to as one of the most successful venture capital deals of all time. Making Naspers the most valuable publicly traded business in Africa by 2017. In 2003, Naspers took full ownership of subscription television business M-Net and its sister companies MultiChoice and M-Web, integrating their extensive operations across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Naspers also launched new publishing ventures in Nigeria and Hungary in 2003. Naspers had a particular focus on India, investing more than $4 billion from 2014 to 2019, across multiple sectors, including into Byju and ibibo. In December 2018, Naspers invested $1 billion into Indian online food ordering and delivery service Swiggy, the largest single investment made, outside of China, into a food tech company. Consolidation (2015–present) In 2015, Naspers merged its South African–focused Kalahari.com online retail business with market leader Takealot.com, acquiring a 46% stake in the merged company and creating South Africa's largest online retailer. By 2018, Naspers owned 96% of Takealot.com. On 9 May 2017, it was announced that the South African competition authorities approved the proposed sale of M-Web, with 31 May 2017 being the effective commencement date. In March 2018 Naspers sold part of its stake in Tencent, raising some $10 billion to fund other investments. At the time, its initial investment of $32 million in Tencent was valued at over $175 billion. Naspers' video entertainment business was spun off as MultiChoice Group, on 27 February 2019, represented as MCG on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Shares in Multichoice Group were unbundled to Naspers shareholders, with Naspers retaining no stake in the newly listed company. Still in 2019, Naspers listed its global internet investment business on Euronext Amsterdam as Prosus, which became Europe's largest consumer Internet company on its market debut. Share values gained over 25 percent on the day of its IPO, with Prosus' market capitalisation exceeding 125 billion pounds (US$138 billion). Prosus reported profits of $4.2 billion for its fiscal year ending 31 March 2019. Naspers Labs, designed in partnership with RLabs and its founder Marlon Parker, launched in 2019 as an economic initiative for unemployed youth in South Africa. In May 2021, Naspers announced a share swap deal with its Dutch-listed subsidiary Prosus in an attempt to reduce the discount between the asset value of the companies and their market capitalisation. The deal, successfully completed in August 2021, reduced Naspers' stake in Prosus to 56.92% and gave Prosus an approximately 49% share in its parent company. ==Controversies==

Apartheid Documents collected by OpenSecrets revealed how Die Nasionale Pers funded the National Party (NP) during apartheid, and that the NP also held 74,000 shares in Die Nasionale Pers in 1984. In a letter written to F.W. de Klerk, on 17 August 1989, the then managing director of Die Nasionale Pers, Ton Vosloo, reaffirmed the company's support of the National Party. Vosloo reminded de Klerk of its donation of R150,000 (approximately R1-million today), made to the NP before the 1987 elections. The company had then also pledged a further R220,000 in support of the NP ahead of South Africa's last race-based general elections, in September 1989. Vosloo ended his letter, promising funding to the NP in Transvaal, by adding that "our newspaper Beeld in the Transvaal is your ally and we trust that this formidable combination will wipe out the competition." In 1997, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission requested that Die Nasionale Pers make a submission about the years between 1960 and 1994 (thus, broadly, between the Sharpeville massacre, in March 1960, and the first democratic elections of April 1994), specifically, the media's role during this period. Die Nasionale Pers refused to comply, which led to 127 employees each making an individual submission to the TRC, apologising for their role in the apartheid years. They said Die Nasionale Pers newspapers had formed an integral part of the power structure which implemented and maintained apartheid through, for instance, supporting the NP in elections and referendums. In 2015, Media24 CEO Esmare Weideman issued a case-limited apology citing a single employee, Conrad Sidego, who had experienced problems with separate facilities. She did not issue an unqualified apology for Naspers's role in supporting apartheid. ==Assets==

Naspers has two principal business units; Prosus & Naspers South Africa. Prosus Prosus is the largest consumer internet company in Europe, and among the largest technology investors in the world, operating across a variety of platforms and geographies. As part of a share swap deal announced in May 2021, Prosus acquired a 49% stake in its parent company Naspers. Other major holdings of Prosus include: • E-commerce – including OLX (100%) • Fintech – including PayU (98.8%) • Food delivery – including iFood (54.8%), Delivery Hero (22.3%) and Swiggy (38.8%) • Retail – including eMag (80.1%) • Travel – including its associate, Ctrip (6%) • Mobility – Bykea • EdTech – Codecademy, Stack Overflow, Brainly, Udemy Prosus is also the largest shareholder of social Internet platforms: • Tencent (26.16%) • VK (27.29%) – this investment was written off in March 2022. Takealot.com Naspers wholly owns Takealot.com, South Africa's largest online retailer. Naspers Foundry Naspers Foundry is a South Africa-focused early stage venture capital fund that invests in firms that "address big societal needs". Naspers Foundry ceased investment operations in March 2023, though it maintained its existing investments. == See also ==