Naspers at crossroads as 36 activist investors question share swap, management alignment

A number of South Africa's top asset managers have teamed together against the complex shareholding structure and lack of management alignment in South Africa's two largest businesses - Naspers and Prosus. The Naspers executive team, led by chief executive Bob van Dijk, has been under scrutiny by market participants for a number of years. The discount in its share price to its investment in Chinese tech titan Tencent has widened following a number of unsuccessful corporate actions. In the email below, addressed to Koos Bekker and Hendrik Du Toit (Naspers non-executive director and chief executive of NinetyOne), the investors outline their concerns, many of which they say have only got worse since Van Dijk's appointment. Unsurprisingly, South Africa's three largest asset managers - Allan Gray, Coronation and NinetyOne were not part of the collective engagement. Shareholder activism is alive and well. Alec Hogg chatted to four of the investors: Anthony Sedgwick - Director at Abax Investments, Shane Watkins - CIO of All Weather Capital, Asief Mohammed - CIO Aeon Investment Managers and Delphine Govender - CEO of Perpetua Investment Managers.