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Naspers launches Kalahariads.net
Right now Gumtree dominates South African online classifieds but that may be about to change with the news that Naspers, owners of Media24 (Africa’s largest magazine publisher) is launching Kalahariads.net. Kalahari.net is a Naspers-owned e-retailer and Naspers aims to build on that brand with free online classifieds with paid-for premium ads given preferential positioning.
According to Kalahariads.net marketing manager Bronwyn Johnson the site will work hand in hand with Media24′s newspapers so an ad in print automatically gets an ad on the site. Small businesses are being courted with the offer of free web pages to profile their companies – a potential winner in a market where a large number of small businesses still don’t have their own web sites.
Johannesburg-listed Naspers has come a long way from its beginnings as a publisher of Afrikaans newspapers in 1915 and is rapidly shaping up as a key player in social networks and classified advertising for developing economies including China, Russia, and Brazil.
An energetic acquisition policy over the last few years mean that Naspers now owns the QC, Mail.ru and Gadu Gadu instant messaging services for China, Russia and Poland respectively, the Tradus online auction portal in Eastern Europe, and the Allegro.pl online auction service in Poland as well as the Latin American BuscaPé shopping comparison engine.
Telstra sells controlling interest of China’s SouFun
Apax Partners and General Atlantic formally agreed to acquire at least most of Telstra’s stake in SouFun, China’s largest real estate portal, which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange late last week (NYSE: SFUN).
Telstra is Australia’s national telecommunications giant. In August, it made known its intention to sell to Apax and GA upon SouFun’s initial public offering. Telstra bought 50.5 percent of SouFun in 2006 for $254 million (U.S.). It had anticipated that the sale of all its shares would bring in about $433 million.
In news releases issued by Apax and GA, they report paying $163 million (U.S.) each for a 19 percent share each — a total of $326 million for 38 percent of SouFun. Presently, it’s unclear what Telstra is doing with the remaining 12.5 percent it owns.
SouFun posted the second-largest first-day gain for a US. IPO after raising $125 million selling shares at the top of its price range. It opened at $31 a share, peaked at about $71 and is currently trading at about $68. The company has a market cap of just over $5 billion.
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