Prosus: Still A Buy Despite The Rally

seekingalpha10-31

Prosus is trading at a ~35% discount to its NAV, despite the recent ~40% rally in the stock's price.The new CEO, Fabricio Bloisi, is expected to drive focus on long-term value generation for investors...

Source Link

Disclaimer: Investing carries risk. This is not financial advice. The above content should not be regarded as an offer, recommendation, or solicitation on acquiring or disposing of any financial products, any associated discussions, comments, or posts by author or other users should not be considered as such either. It is solely for general information purpose only, which does not consider your own investment objectives, financial situations or needs. TTM assumes no responsibility or warranty for the accuracy and completeness of the information, investors should do their own research and may seek professional advice before investing.

Comments

VVR
11-06
VVR
Very nice article with easy to understand explanations/ great work

Leave a comment

{"i18n":{"language":"en_US"},"isChannel":false,"data":{"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/2479730034?lang=en_US&edition=fundamental","thumbnail":"https://static.seekingalpha.com/cdn/s3/uploads/getty_images/1739023507/image_1739023507.jpg","is_english":true,"pubTime":"2024-10-31 00:30","share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/5a36db9d73b4222bc376d24ccc48c8a4","id":"2479730034","market":"sh","top_or_hot":-1,"title":"Prosus: Still A Buy Despite The Rally","media":"seekingalpha","content":"<div>\n<p>Prosus is trading at a ~35% discount to its NAV, despite the recent ~40% rally in the stock's price.The new CEO, Fabricio Bloisi, is expected to drive focus on long-term value generation for investors...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4730910-prosus-still-buy-despite-rally\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n","source":"seekingalpha","html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Prosus: Still A Buy Despite The Rally</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nProsus: Still A Buy Despite The Rally\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2024-10-31 00:30 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://seekingalpha.com/article/4730910-prosus-still-buy-despite-rally><strong>seekingalpha</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Prosus is trading at a ~35% discount to its NAV, despite the recent ~40% rally in the stock's price.The new CEO, Fabricio Bloisi, is expected to drive focus on long-term value generation for investors...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4730910-prosus-still-buy-despite-rally\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"BK4122","symbol_name":"互联网与直销零售","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://seekingalpha.com/article/4730910-prosus-still-buy-despite-rally","article_id":"2479730034","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":["https://static.seekingalpha.com/cdn/s3/uploads/getty_images/1739023507/image_1739023507.jpg"],"rights":null,"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2479730034","pubTimestamp":1730305812,"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"seekingalpha","name":"Seeking Alpha"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Prosus is trading at a ~35% discount to its NAV, despite the recent ~40% rally in the stock's price.The new CEO, Fabricio Bloisi, is expected to drive focus on long-term value generation for investors","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"seekingalpha.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"BK4122":"互联网与直销零售","PROSY":"Prosus NV","PROSF":"Prosus NV","BK4220":"综合零售"},"translate_title":"Prosus：尽管上涨，但仍值得买入","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"PROSF":0.9,"PROSY":0.9},"content_text":"Prosus is trading at a ~35% discount to its NAV, despite the recent ~40% rally in the stock's price.The new CEO, Fabricio Bloisi, is expected to drive focus on long-term value generation for investors.Upcoming IPOs of portfolio companies in India, starting with Swiggy, can drive incremental value to NAV.Tencent seems to be fairly valued, and the discount to NAV is expected to reduce because of the aggressive buyback program of Prosus.   Alistair Berg  I am writing this article as a follow-up to my previous article on Prosus (OTCPK:PROSF). In my previous coverage, I had highlighted that the company is an extremely undervalued stock and trading at a 35% discount to its NAV. Since my publication, the stock price has increased 33.8%. In this article, I wanted to refresh my analysis of the company and assess whether it is still a buy or has finally reached its fair market value. Background As it has been extensively covered, Prosus is an investment management company, with the majority of its value coming from its investment in Tencent (OTCPK:TCEHY). Over the last couple of years, it has been management’s focus to reduce the company’s % holding in Tencent and take a more active role in managing more lucrative mid-stage ventures in developing markets. Prosus has been doing this effectively and has created a strong portfolio of multiple quality investments, such as OLX (317 Mn Monthly active users), Stack Overflow (23 Mn Registered Users), PayU (450K registered merchants) and Swiggy (50 Mn registered users). Further, to achieve this objective, Prosus has been selling its shares in Tencent and actively buying back its own shares. Over the last two years, it has already bought back over 20% of its market value through share buybacks. Change in leadership and focus on active portfolio management On 1 July 2024, Fabricio Bloisi was appointed as the new CEO of Prosus, replacing long-time CEO Bob van Dijk. In my opinion, this is good news. While Bob had been the CEO since 2014, and led the listing of Prosus in 2019, his compensation package had raised concerns amongst long-term shareholders. Last financial year, he received $18.3Mn including base salary and performance incentives, while the many investments by Prosus like Byju's lost shareholder value. As reported in SEC filings, the management was given a one time cash incentive of up to $3.5 MN for reducing the NAV discount of Prosus by 31 March, 2024. This type of incentive mechanism rewards short-term valuation vs the long-term interest of shareholders and incentivizes the management to offload shares of Tencent irrespective of the fair value of the company. In my opinion, the new CEO is likely to learn from these past criticisms, and generate more longer-term value for the shareholders. Fabricio comes from a portfolio company, iFood and was unanimously voted in by the board. His previous experience in generating value for stakeholders in the long run is likely to be applied at Prosus as well. This approach is also evident from the latest investor letter shared by the CEO, where he has advocated value generation through active portfolio management. To achieve this goal, Prosus has sold its stake in Trip.com (TCOM) for $1.5 billion. As reported by certain news organizations, the timing of this move was very bad because Prosus could have gained up to $225 million had it sold the stock just a few weeks later when the news of the stimulus package in China arrived. Having said that, I believe these move aligns with the long-term strategy of the company and will help Prosus manage its portfolio investment more actively. IPO of early-stage investments For the next couple of years, I expect Prosus to IPO multiple investments that it has created in emerging markets such as India. To quote the CEO: We have many more investments in India and will continue to invest there as we remain excited about the prospects for the country. I expect we will see more of our investments in India IPO in the coming 12 to 18 months. As highlighted in my previous article, this can be a disproportionate value unlock for Prosus. Currently, the Indian IPO market is very hot, and we are seeing sky-high valuations for companies without much link to fundamentals. For example, a small automobile dealership called Resourceful Automobiles IPO’ed in India on Aug ’24 and had an over subscription of 400 times its ask. The current investment portfolio of Prosus in India includes some very well-known day-to-day names. Given the high quality of its portfolio in the country, I expect Prosus to be able to significantly enhance its NAV in the country over the next couple of years. Some of the top brands owned by Prosus in India include OLX, Meesho, LazyPay, Mensa & PharmEasy. In Particular, I expect Prosus to generate ~3-5% incremental NAV value from the IPO of Swiggy about which I had written extensively in my previous article. As per recent filings by Swiggy, the company is getting an IPO at an $11.3 billion valuation. Prosus currently owns around 31% of the company - adding around $3.3 billion to its NAV. This is a 3X return in just 4 years, given Swiggy was valued at just ~$3Bn in 2020 when Prosus led a follow-up round for the start-up. Tencent’s Valuation - Elephant in the room Given that 77% of the NAV of Prosus is derived from its investment in Tencent, I think it becomes critical to evaluate in detail whether Tencent is fairly valued right now, and how do we expect its stock price to evolve, ensuring that Prosus's NAV does not drop dramatically. As you can see from the chart below, Tencent has increased around 43% in the last one year. This is broadly in line with the returns of S&P 500. Having said that, it is noteworthy to mention that Tencent is one of the best AI plays from China and hence a performance equal to a broad market index does not do justice to Tencent. It is also noteworthy to flag that earlier this month, the stock of the company skyrocketed with the news of stimulus. However, the initial enthusiasm has reduced, and the company is only 10% higher than what it was trading before the news of stimulus.   Tencent vs S&P 500 returns (Seeking Alpha) From a P/E perspective, Tencent is currently trading at a P/E ratio of 16 times its 2024 consensus estimate and only 14 times its estimated 2025 earnings. For a company, which is projecting double-digit YoY growth in EPS, the multiple seems very low. Overall, in my opinion, it seems that Tencent is still undervalued from a P/E perspective and at worst, fairly valued. Hence, to conclude, I do not expect a significant devaluation in the NAV of Prosus from a declining price of Tencent in the long run and believe that it should either stay in the same range or even potentially trend higher. Valuation and Discount to NAV Now let us analyze the current NAV of Prosus in more detail and check whether the discount to NAV has reduced with this run up over the last few months. As you can see from the disclosure below, it seems that the current NAV of Tencent is ~EUR61/share, or ~$66/share. Consequently, since my last article, even though Prosus has delivered ~40% return, the discount to NAV has not reduced, and stayed the same at ~34%.   Prosus NAV as of 29 Oct (Company Website) Additionally, if we just look at the market value of Prosus’s investment in Tencent, it comes out to be approximately $51. Hence, the market is still valuing Prosus at a lower amount than its entire stake in Tencent and is valuing the rest of its portfolio negatively.   Prosus Valuation and discount to NAV (Author calculations, with data from Prosus) Given the strong determination of the company's management to buy back its own shares at this discount and generate returns for shareholders, I anticipate the discount to NAV for Prosus will continue to diminish, and we will see some value for long-term investors. I believe the management should be able to reduce this discount till up to 80% of NAV, and will re-rate Prosus a buy with a target share price of $53/Share. Risk and Concerns A key risk to the fortunes of Prosus is the regulatory environment in China. Given that the majority of the NAV of Prosus is generated from its value in Tencent, I expect any news that triggers a generic ‘Sell Chinese stocks’ fear is likely to negatively impact Prosus. With the US elections, just around the corner - and talks of up to 60% tariff on Chinese imports - there is a high likelihood that we may see strong sell pressure on the Chinese equities later this month. In such a scenario, Tencent and consequently, Prosus are also likely to be negatively impacted. Similarly, Prosus is over-indexed on technology companies within its portfolio, with Classifieds, Ecommerce, Food delivery, Payments/Fintech & EdTech being its key areas of investment. Any generic decline in the technology sector is likely to impact almost the entire portfolio of Prosus, and hence its NAV and valuation. Lastly, a cold response to the Swiggy IPO in India is likely to put a question mark on the entire IPO thesis for Prosus. This may further delay the timeline by when it may be able to IPO its other investments in India and put an overall negative pressure on the stock price.  Editor's Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.","kind":null,"is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"analysis","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0},"commentList":[{"id":367932375703664,"gmtCreate":1730844992437,"gmtModify":1730844996786,"author":{"id":"3572239973051764","authorId":"3572239973051764","name":"VVR","avatar":"https://static.laohu8.com/default-avatar.jpg","vip":1,"crmLevel":7,"crmLevelSwitch":0,"authorIdStr":"3572239973051764","idStr":"3572239973051764"},"htmlText":"Very nice article with easy to understand explanations/ great work","listText":"Very nice article with easy to understand explanations/ great work","text":"Very nice article with easy to understand explanations/ great work","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://ttm.financial/post/367932375703664","repostId":2479730034,"repostType":2,"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"EN"}],"isCommentEnd":false,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":1,"commentSize":1,"repostSize":1,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.29.1","shortVersion":"4.29.1","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2479730034"}