Prosus is a subsidiary of Naspers, a century-old giant from South Africa. As digitalisation took off, the parent company made a number of investments, notably to diversify into technology. 

Tencent turned out to be the golden ticket: with a $30m (USD) investment in 2001, the Dutch-listed unit now holds about a fifth of the Chinese giant's equity, worth €160bn. 

It was listed on a European stock exchange in 2019 to narrow the discount between Naspers' value and its Tencent stake, and to open a fairly unique platform of technology assets to more investors. 

Prosus has long been (and still is?) seen as a cut-price proxy for Tencent. Indeed, while the holding company houses dozens of businesses of varying scale in terms of users, few of them have so far generated meaningful revenue. That discount therefore clings to it, as befits a holding company, even as the current management tries to shed the costume. 

The group's income statement is easy to recognise. Each year, it shows hundreds of millions in operating losses, largely offset by its share of net income from its investments and by share disposals.

The group hopes that this era is over: for the first time since its IPO, operating profit for the financial year is positive, and free cash flow generated outside Tencent is positive as well.

Tencent… and everything else

For a long time, Prosus' other assets were little more than cash-hungry promises, and a certain discount to total asset value was therefore deserved. 

However, since Fabricio Bloisi took the helm eighteen months ago, the strategy has changed profoundly. Prosus now aims to turn itself into an operating technology company, focused on e-commerce in its core markets: Europe, Latin America and India. In that vein, the chief investment officer was let go last summer.

To understand the strategy beyond Tencent, think in terms of ecosystems. The group operates in a few key e-commerce segments: meal delivery, classifieds and marketplaces, payment platforms, and educational content. 

The goal is to connect these businesses in each region through shared technology building blocks - payments, logistics, data and artificial intelligence, for example - to generate synergies and, ultimately, improve profitability.

Take South America. Prosus owns iFood, a major player in meal delivery and online commerce. It recently strengthened its position by buying Despegar, the continent's leading online travel company, for €1.7bn. Next, OLX, its subsidiary and global leader in classifieds, also runs local sites. Prosus also controls payment and credit platforms across the region. Just six months after Despegar was integrated, iFood recommendations account for 5% of its revenue. 

Prosus intends to replicate this kind of ecosystem in India and Europe. On the Old Continent, Just Eat Takeaway is the new flagship for meal deliveries. The Dutch group has also just brought the French automotive listings group La Centrale into the sites managed by OLX, for €1.1bn. There are many other businesses as well; eMAG, for instance, is the leading online e-commerce platform in Romania and is present across Central Europe. 

This entire ecosystem thesis is, of course, powered by AI, which now defines the group.


Revenue contribution by business segment for FY 2025, which ended before the summer. Amounts in US dollars. 


Margins suggest the strategy is in place, but the build-out is still under way.

A market cap that exceeds the Tencent stake?

For now, shareholder returns still come primarily fromTencent dividends, which in particular fund share buybacks. Prosus has launched an open-ended buyback plan, no less. In fact, it has been the tech group buying back the largest proportion of its own shares globally in recent years. This aggressive program has generated an 18% increase in NAV per share versus what it would have been without buybacks. 

Next it will need to break free from Tencent's shadow to write its own story. Everone awaits the day when Prosus will prove its ability to turn its dominant positions into attractive returns on capital.

As for Fabricio Bloisi, the man conducting this transformation, he has been offered a fairly unique challenge. He told shareholders a few weeks ago that he would receive a €100m bonus on two conditions: he must double the combined market cap of Prosus and Naspers, and beat the median of a peer group in terms of total shareholder return by June 30 of 2028. 

Those who like him are following him.