Naspers’s OLX revs its engine with Webuycars deal

Naspers’s online classifieds business, OLX Group, said it will invest R1.4bn in Webuycars, a local vehicle-purchasing service.

Combining Webuycars’ instant-buying model and OLX’s online classifieds technology will "provide dealerships with improved access to stock, and private buyers and sellers with an enhanced user experience", OLX said in an e-mailed statement on Tuesday.

In May, OLX — through its early-stage investment arm OLX Ventures — invested $89m in online car marketplace Frontier Car Group.

Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk told Business Day on Monday, after announcing the unbundling of MultiChoice, that the group would continue to invest in its South African businesses, which include Takealot, Mr D Food, PayU and AutoTrader.

“In the last year, we invested R3.3bn in the e-commerce businesses in SA alone. We expect to continue to invest and we’re looking at interesting prospects.”

Africa’s most valuable public company, which owns a 31% stake in Chinese internet giant Tencent, said it planned to offload its pay-TV business MultiChoice by listing it on the JSE. Naspers will hand its stake in the DStv operator to its shareholders.

After gaining 0.7% on Monday, Naspers shares opened 0.5% up in early Tuesday trading.

Bloomberg, BusinessLIVE