The emerging markets internet and media giant – Naspers which is the largest public company in Africa, will list its satellite television subsidiary MultiChoice, it has announced.
MultiChoice’s DStv service currently is the biggest TV operation in Africa, broadcasting to some 50 countries, and was one of the first satellite companies to pioneer the then newly-minted digital broadcasting when it began in 1996.
The company will be listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) and will be known as MultiChoice Group. It will include MultiChoice South Africa, MultiChoice Africa, Showmax Africa, and Irdeto. Naspers will retain its primary listing on the JSE.
“This marks a significant step for the Naspers Group as we continue our evolution into a global consumer internet company,” said Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk. “Listing MultiChoice Group via an unbundling aims to unlock value for Naspers shareholders and at the same time create an empowered, top-40 JSE-listed African entertainment company.”
MultiChoice has been part of Naspers’ Video Entertainment division, which had revenue of ZAR47.1-billion ($3.1-billion), a trading profit of R6.1-billion ($401.6-million) and added 1.5-million subscribers in the last financial year, according to Naspers figures. It “is one of the fastest growing pay-TV operators globally. Its multi-platform business entertains 13.5-million households across Africa.. and employs more than 9,000 people in Africa,” it said. A further 20,000 people are employed by its partners and suppliers on the continent.
MultiChoice offers online streaming services called ShowMax (which offers a pure-play service in Poland) and DStv Now.
For decades MultiChoice was the crown jewel of the Naspers stable, until its internet interest – especially Tencent – became the group’s focus. The first channel, called M-Net, was the brainchild of Koos Bekker, now Naspers chairman, who was studying for an MBA at Columbia University. At the time it launches in 1986 M-Net was one of only two pay-TV channels in the world.
DStv’s first broadcast in October 1986 was the final of a provincial rugby competition, called the Currie Cup, between provinces then known as Western Province and Transvaal. But, with massive capital investment and huge overheads, within a year it faced severe financial pressures as it struggled to attract customers.
MultiChoice’s strategic advantage was its choice of new technology (well-made decoders) and a clever change in strategy (from selling to apartment complexes and to single homes), something Bekker would prove adept at doing when he bought a one-third stake in 2000 for $30-million in a then-unknown Chinese messaging company called Tencent, whose QQ instant messaging service now has over 1-billion customers.
The decoders “sold sweetly, since we now needed to persuade only a single guy and it didn’t matter what his neighbors thought”.
M-Net “scraped through by the skin of our teeth, and by the end of [19]88 were breaking even on a monthly basis” and became profitable in 1990. It was listed a year later and Bekker took over as Naspers CEO in 1996, a decade after his big gamble on the nascent digital television market had become a roaring success.
Bekker is now one of South Africa’s best – and best-known – businessman. His gamble on Tencent has made Naspers the most valued listed company in Africa, after AB InBev bought South African Breweries. It is the most valuable media company outside of the US and China and the seventh largest internet company in the world.
Naspers growth and status, as well as its entrepreneurial culture, is because of Bekker, who also brought “equality to this business right in the beginning, thanks to Koos. He set the pace for how the public company in the new coming South Africa would have to look. No discrimination whatsoever.”
MultiChoice, Africa’s Biggest TV Operator, To Be Listed By Naspers, Africa’s Largest Public Company
