With Naspers’ shares increasing nearly 90% in the last year, their ever-present investment in Chinese company Ten Cent makes Multichoice look like chicken feed.

This, from Timeslive:

The market value of Tencent Holdings passed $100-billion within a decade of going public as Asia’s biggest internet company capitalises on China’s explosion in online gaming and messaging.

Naspers acquired a 34% stake in Tencent in 2001, and the Chinese company has since dwarfed the South African company’s print business. Even MultiChoice, which owns DStv and M-Net, looks small in comparison to Tencent’s value on Naspers’s books.

Tencent’s 2.2% increase in Hong Kong this week lifted its market value to $101-billion. The company, run by billionaire Pony Ma, joins six other members of Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index in the $100-billion club, including PetroChina and China Mobile.

China’s online population surged almost sevenfold since Tencent’s 2004 listing, with revenue more than doubling in the past two years.

Tencent’s market capitalisation is greater than that of McDonald’s and Boeing. It trails a handful of technology companies worldwide, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung and Facebook, which is valued at $103.5-billion.

[more here]

Led by entrpreneur Koos Bekker, the rise and rise of Naspers seems unstoppable.

From our article, “This Is How Koos Bekker Became A Billionaire” :

Jacobus Petrus “Koos” Bekker, the man responsible for taking over De Nasionale Pers (the publishing company that brought us Die Burger, now known as Naspers Ltd.) in 1997 hit a landmark this year – he has become a billionaire.

Click here for more on that.