Dutch group Prosus NV sold another piece of its US$92 billion stake in Tencent Holdings to help fund its own stock buy-back in Amsterdam, pressuring the WeChat operator’s stock trading near this year’s low in Hong Kong.
The investment firm sold 513,500 shares on December 7, according to a regulatory filing and a statement on its website. The sale reduced Prosus’s interest in Tencent to 24.99 per cent. The sale was worth about HK$157.4 million (US$20.1 million), based on Tencent’s average trading price on Thursday.
Tencent’s stock fell as much as 2.2 per cent to HK$301 in Hong Kong on Friday. The stock hit a 13-month low of HK$283 on October 24, and has lost 16 per cent or HK$722 billion in market value since Prosus shocked the market in June last year with its Tencent selldown programme.
Tencent, owner of Chinese super-app WeChat, has lost 16 per cent of its market value since Prosus announced its selldown programme in June 2022 Photo: Shutterstock
“If you have a consistent seller on the market who takes up daily trading volume of 3 to 5 per cent, there will surely be pressure on the stock price,” said Willer Chen, senior research analyst at Forsyth Barr Asia. “Tencent is their most liquid asset [to generate cash].”
This week’s cutback is the third such public disclosure. Prosus last reported selling Tencent shares in April this year and December 2022, when its stake fell below 26 per cent and 27 per cent respectively, as required under the local stock exchange’s shareholding rules.
Tencent loses US$7.4 billion of market value as Prosus prepares to cut stake
In total, Prosus has sold at least 2.3 million Tencent shares in the past year, according to filings. Its latest holding of 24.99 per cent stake, or about 2.38 billion shares, is worth about US$92 billion at current market price.
A Tencent spokesman declined to comment when contacted by the Post on Friday. Prosus did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment outside business hours.
Prosus had earlier raised about US$3.7 billion from the sale of its 4 per cent stake in Chinese e-commerce platform operator JD.com, which it received as a special dividend from Tencent last year.
Meanwhile, Tencent repurchased 1.31 million of its shares on December 7 for HK$402.1 million, or at HK$304.20 to HK$311 per share, under its buy-back mandate. The Shenzhen-based company has bought back a total of 108 million shares this year, according to its stock exchange filing.
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