Prosus, a major shareholder of Tencent, and Citic Group refuted the rumor that the news that the latter had formed a group to acquire shares in Tencent was not true.

CTOnews.com, November 1, according to Interface News, on November 1, Prosus, Tencent's largest shareholder and a Dutch subsidiary of South Africa's Naspers Group, issued a statement that media company Asian Tech Press said on October 31 that Citic Group was organizing a group to negotiate with Naspers to acquire all its shares in Tencent, which was speculative and not true. Naspers Group will continue to implement the open-ended share buyback program announced in June this year, which is funded by the regular and orderly sale of a small number of Tencent holding shares held by the group.

The boards of Naspers and Prosus reiterated their confidence in Tencent's long-term prospects and continued to believe that the share buyback plan was in the best interests of Prosus, Naspers and their respective shareholders.

In addition, according to China Business report, in response to the news that Citic formed a group to acquire shares in Tencent, CITIC Group said that the rumors are not true and there are no related plans.

According to Tencent's 2022 interim report, its largest shareholder MIH TC is controlled by Prosus, a wholly owned subsidiary of South African newspaper group Naspers. After several rounds of reductions, South African newspaper group Naspers's stake in Tencent has fallen from 46 per cent at the beginning to 27.99 per cent today.

Citic is a wholly state-owned enterprise and its main business includes finance, industry and other service sectors.