The Zhitong Finance App learned that on May 17, the majority shareholder of Tencent (00700), South African media giant Naspers, and its board of directors of Prosus approved the appointment of Fabricio Bloisi as CEO (CEO) and executive director of Naspers and Prosus, effective July 1. According to reports, Naspers and Prosus began an unlimited reduction in Tencent holdings at the end of June 2022 to support their own repurchase plans to narrow their net asset value and share price discounts per share. Naspers and Prosus stated in the latest statement that the Group's strategic goals remain unchanged and are expected to deliver on its business promises, including comprehensive e-commerce recording profits in the second half of fiscal year 2024, and will continue to implement an open share repurchase plan.

NASPERS and Prosus have now internally promoted their takeaway company iFood CEO Fabricio Bloisi to take over as Group CEO. Koos Bekker, chairman of Prosus and Naspers, said Fabricio has made iFood the most innovative food delivery company in the world and a famous brand in Latin America. Fabricio was described as having excellent vision, deep operating experience and strict discipline. The board of directors considered him the right person to lead the group.

It is worth mentioning that on the evening of April 8, Tencent Holdings released the full 2023 financial report. In terms of shareholder ownership, financial reports show that at the end of 2023, Mih Internet Holdings B.V., controlled by Prosus, held 2,367 million shares of Tencent's shares through Prosus, a decrease of 210 million shares. The shareholding ratio fell from 26.93% at the end of 2022 to 24.96% at the end of 2023. At the same time that the majority shareholders reduced their holdings, Tencent spent money on repurchases. According to reports, Tencent's repurchase amount in 2023 was HK$49 billion, which is more than the sum of the previous ten years.

Furthermore, since mid-January this year, Tencent has increased its average daily repurchase amount from around HK$500 million to HK$1 billion. However, after Tencent announced its first-quarter results on May 14, it resumed the repurchase on the 17th, but the amount was reduced by about 58.8%, and only HK$415 million was spent to buy back 1.05 million shares.

Tencent promised to at least double the repurchase scale to over HK$100 billion this year. Tencent President Liu Chiping said in an analysts' conference call that the group's repurchase plan has always been carried out on a consistent basis. He does not believe that the company's share repurchase pace depends on stock prices. Considering factors such as Tencent's sharp increase in corporate profits and portfolio value, the long-term prospects are very good, so it will continue to be repurchased.