In 2001, South Africa’s Naspers invested just $34 million in a little-known Chinese internet company called Tencent.
It acquired 46.5% of the company.
For 17 years, Naspers sold nothing.
Then, in 2018, it sold just 2% of Tencent for $9.8 billion — nearly 300 times its original investment.
In 2019, Naspers placed Tencent and its other international internet assets into Prosus and listed it in Amsterdam.
Today, Prosus still owns roughly 22% of Tencent.
That stake alone is worth about $112 billion.
Prosus itself is worth only about $86 billion on the stock market.
Think about that.
A $34 million investment made 25 years ago has evolved into a stake still worth more than $100 billion — after tens of billions of dollars have already been sold.
The lesson is usually framed as one of the greatest venture investments in history.
But I think the more interesting lesson is about globalization.
Naspers did not build Tencent.
It did not invent WeChat. It did not develop China’s gaming industry. It did not send thousands of South African engineers to Shenzhen.
It identified an extraordinary company in another country, bought a meaningful stake, and held it for decades.
Companies often assume that becoming global means exporting what they built at home.
But products, management systems and corporate cultures do not always cross borders easily.
Capital does.
Naspers began as a South African newspaper publisher in 1915.
Its most consequential global expansion was not exporting South African media.
It was allocating $34 million to the right company 12,000 kilometers away.
You do not always need to build the global winner.
You just need to own one.
