Mergers & Takeovers - Just Eat
JUST EAT The Tencent bet that turned into billions A big gamble on China changed the game for company behind hostile takeover Ben Martin, Dominic Walsh October 23 2019, 12:01am, The Times Food and drink Asia China Energy Naspers invested $34 million in the Chinese internet messaging company Tencent 18 years ago. Its market value has swelled to about $400 billion and Naspers, still owns 31 per cent INTERNET Tencent was an obscure Chinese internet messaging company when Koos Bekker took a $34 million punt on the business 18 years ago. At the time Mr Bekker was chief executive of Naspers, a South African media business and newspaper publisher known for its nationalist stance in the apartheid era. But that bet, which handed Naspers a 46.5 per cent stake in Tencent, would change everything. It made a billionaire of Mr Bekker, 66, who remains Naspers’ chairman, and helped to transform the Cape Town-based company into the sprawling, intern...