Naspers teams up with rival

Media giant Naspers sealed a "one of a kind" deal late last week when it joined forces with one of its rivals in e-commerce.

Naspers said it would work with Norwegian media house Schibsted in Brazil's lucrative online classified advertising market.

It also plans to go into joint ventures in Thailand, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

Telenor, another Norwegian company, and Singapore's Press Holdings, will also have stakes in the business, Naspers said.

Online classifieds is a growing business in emerging markets. South African consumers are familiar with OLX, a Naspers-owned platform.

"Combining the platforms will make it faster and easier for consumers to trade and turn their items into cash," said Naspers.

But this might be the last such deal for a while.

"I don't see other markets that have the same potential," Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk told The Times.

Van Dijk worked as chief operating officer for Schibsted before joining eBay and then taking over as Naspers CEO in April.

"We have been working [on the deal] for a while," said Van Dijk.

Naspers's share price rocketed to an all-time high of R1600 on Friday. Apart from the online classifieds deals, it was also announced that Naspers expected its earnings to be 24% higher than last year.

And TenCent, the Chinese social media company, said on the same day that it had concluded a deal with Warner Music that would lead to it selling content in China.

Naspers holds a 34% stake in TenCent. The investment has been the dominant contributor to the South African company's market value.

Van Dijk aims to grow the e-commerce side of the business. His predecessor, Koos Bekker, said last year that e-commerce would soon generate more revenue for Naspers than TenCent.

Naspers briefly broke through R1600 a share on Friday. It closed on R1555, nearly 9% up on the day, and 66.4% higher than a year ago.