Prosus is buying on-line journey company Despegar.com for US$1.7-billion (R32-billion) because the Dutch know-how investor seeks to increase its on-line commerce presence in Latin America.
Despegar’s board authorized the provide of $19.50/share, a 33% premium to the closing value on 20 December, Prosus mentioned in an announcement on Monday.
“This acquisition demonstrates our technique to construct worth by creating high-quality ecosystems of complementary know-how companies,” Prosus CEO Fabricio Bloisi mentioned. “We’ll speed up Despegar’s development by leveraging the intensive buyer touchpoints inside our portfolio.”
Prosus dad or mum Naspers was an early investor in Tencent Holdings, and Prosus is now scouring the globe for firms in an effort to copy its success with the Chinese language web agency. Bloisi, who previous to taking the helm at Prosus in July ran its Latin American iFood supply service, stands to earn a $100-million moonshot pay package deal if he can double the corporate’s worth in 4 years.
The group has offered off some investments since Bloisi took over, together with a stake in Indian on-line meals supply agency Swiggy throughout its preliminary public providing and its holding in China’s Journey.com for about $1.5-billion. That is its first large acquisition below Bloisi, though extra offers are anticipated as he seeks fast development.
Despegar operates in 19 international locations and handles over 9.5 million transactions a yr. The corporate did $5.3-billion in gross bookings in its 2023 monetary yr.
100 million clients
The deal, which is predicted to shut throughout the second quarter of 2025 pending regulatory approval, will add to Prosus’s e-commerce portfolio in Latin America, the place it additionally has a categorized enterprise OLX, iFood and occasions platform Sympla.
Upon completion, the group could have about 100 million clients and over $500-million in e-commerce earnings earlier than curiosity and tax in Latin America, in keeping with a Prosus presentation.
Learn: Naspers plans extra IPOs after Swiggy success
Prosus has redoubled its efforts to deploy the corporate’s capital, specializing in sectors together with on-line meals, classifieds, funds and fintech, Prosus chief funding officer and president Ervin Tu mentioned final month.
Prosus, by way of Naspers, made a blockbuster funding in Tencent in 2001, when it paid $34-million for almost half of the corporate. Right this moment, it owns a couple of quarter of the agency, which has a market worth of about $480-billion. The group’s funding within the Chinese language tech big has distorted Prosus’s inventory value and created a niche between the worth of the stake and the remainder of the group’s companies. — (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP
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