Tencent major shareholder Prosus: will continue to hold a long-term stake in Tencent

CTOnews.com, July 17 (Xinhua) according to the Wall Street Journal, Prosus, the largest shareholder of Tencent Holdings, said that it will continue to hold a stake in Tencent for a long time and maintain confidence in Tencent's business and the future of China's Internet industry.

Prosus currently owns about 26% of Tencent, worth about $112 billion (CTOnews.com Note: currently about 800.8 billion yuan). The Amsterdam-based investment company is slowly selling some of its shares in Tencent to buy back its own shares. Prosus expects its stake in Tencent to shrink by 2 per cent per cent a year during the buyback period and to fall to 24 per cent to 25 per cent this year.

Naspers, the parent company of Prosus, bought a 1/3 stake in Tencent for $34 million in 2001. Since then, Tencent has become the world's largest video game company and has developed Wechat, a popular instant messaging app. Both Prosus and Naspers rely on Tencent's dividend income, and Prosus also faces difficulties in finding investment opportunities as good as Tencent.

Currently, Tencent has a market capitalization of about $430 billion (currently about 3.07 trillion yuan). Prosus's Tencent stake is worth more than Prosus's own market capitalization, which is about $95 billion (currently about 679.25 billion yuan).