Naspers Limited is a South African multinational internet, technology and multimedia holding company headquartered in Cape Town, with interests in online retail, publishing and venture capital investment. Naspers' principal shareholder is its Dutch listed investment subsidiary Prosus, which owns approximately 49% of its parent as part of a cross ownership structure.
Founded in 1915 by attorney W. A. Hofmeyr, Naspers was the largest publishing company in South Africa throughout the 20th century with interests across newspapers, magazines and books. In the 1980s, the company began to diversify, launching a subscription television service and investing in markets outside of South Africa for the first time.
In 2001, Naspers made an early investment in Chinese technology firm Tencent and became increasingly focused on the global consumer internet sector. In 2019, Naspers listed its global internet investment business unit Prosus (including a 31% stake in Tencent) on Euronext Amsterdam.
Naspers currently owns a 56.92% stake in Prosus and wholly owns Media24 (Africa's largest publishing company), Takealot.com (South Africa's largest online retailer) and Naspers Foundry, a South African focused venture capital fund.
History
Founding and Afrikaner nationalism
In 1914, a group of prominent Cape Afrikaners decided at a meeting in Stellenbosch to form a publishing company that would support Afrikaner nationalism in the Union of South Africa. This meeting led to W. A. Hofmeyr, a well-known Cape lawyer and National Party organizer; founding De Nasionale Pers Beperkt (National Press Ltd) in 1915 as a publisher of newspapers and magazines. The firm's name was commonly shortened to Naspers (De Nasionale Pers Beperk), the contraction eventually becoming used even by the company itself.
Naspers launched with the support of Jannie Marais, a prominent Stellenbosch farmer, Jan Christiaan Smuts, Louis Botha, and National Party founding president J.B.M. Hertzog. Naspers was strongly supportive of the National Party and began publishing the Afrikaans-language daily De Burger (later renamed Die Burger) in June 1915, followed by its first magazine, De Huisgenoot (later Die Huisgenoot) in 1916.
Domestic expansion (1917–1986) In 1917, Naspers bought the weekly Bloemfontein-based Afrikaan newspaper Het Volksblad (now Volksblad), the first expansion beyond the Cape Province for the company. In 1925, Die Volksblad started publishing daily. In 1937, it started Die Oosterlig in the Eastern Cape. Also in 1937, Nasionale Pers set up the company Voortrekkerpers in the Transvaal to support the National Party in Transvaal by publishing Die Transvaler. Initially the Cape National Party tried to control the extremism of the National Party in the Transvaal by appointing Hendrik Verwoerd as the paper's first editor but he would side with Transvaal branch and Nationale Pers gave up editorial control in 1939. In order to combat the influence of Albert Hertzog in the Transvaal National Party, Nationale Pers introduced a more enlightened Sunday newspaper in 1965 in the province called the Die Beeld in competition to the Dagbreek. By 1970, these two papers, the latter owned by Perskor, to merge into a paper called the Rapport managed by both groups. In 1965, Naspers launched their first English-language magazine Fairlady. In 1974, the Afrikaans newspaper Beeld began publishing daily for the Johannesburg market.
Naspers entered the South African general and educational book publishing markets in 1918, initially publishing exclusively in Afrikaans. The company expanded to English-language titles in 1919 and Xhosa in 1922. Naspers spun off its book publishing operations in 1950 into a separate business, Nasionale Boekhandel. In 1963, Naspers recommenced educational publishing operations through subsidiary Nasou.
In 1973, Naspers took back control of Nasionale Boekhandel, before acquiring another publishing house Human & Rousseau in 1977. Naspers continued to develop its book publishing business during the 1980s, forming the Afrikaans-language book club Leserskring in 1979 and the English-language book club Leisure Hour. In 1986, Naspers acquired publisher JL van Schaik.
In 1984, Naspers acquired Drum Publications, publisher of the Sunday newspaper City Press and weekly magazines Drum and True Love & Family, titles focused on a black readership.