Prosus Plans $5 Billion Buyback, More Investments to Drive Growth — Update

By Adria Calatayud

Tech investor Prosus plans $5 billion in buybacks and additional investments over the coming year, as the group seeks to build out its own operations to become less reliant on its stake in China's Tencent Holdings.

The Amsterdam-listed company spent $8 billion in its past fiscal year buying food-delivery company Just Eat Takeaway, motor-classified-ads platform La Centrale and online travel agency Despegar to bolster the operations it directly runs. But Tencent--in which it is the biggest shareholder with a nearly $111 billion stake--remains the cornerstone of its portfolio.

Prosus plans to continue investing in smaller deals and buying minority stakes in companies, as well as on its own businesses, to drive growth and profitability going forward, it said Monday.

"That means bolt-on [mergers and acquisitions] to strengthen what we already have, building or acquiring leading assets where we see genuine platform potential, and taking minority positions in companies that can accelerate the broader ecosystem," Prosus Chief Executive Fabricio Bloisi said.

Big acquisitions are off the table for now, a Prosus spokesman said. Artificial intelligence is a key investment focus for the group, both when looking for outside opportunities and for its own operations, he added.

To fund its investments, Prosus expects to offload more noncore assets in the year through March 2027, on top of sales of noncore holdings of $2 billion carried out in its last fiscal year, it said.

Shares in Prosus were up 3.3% in European midday trading.

The company posted a net profit of $11.64 billion for the year ended March 31, down from $12.37 billion a year earlier. The decline mainly reflected a reduction in the pace of sales of Tencent stock, it said.

Core headline earnings per share--one of its preferred profitability metrics--jumped 24% to $3.78, Prosus said.

Revenue jumped to $9.705 billion from $6.17 billion, while adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization from the businesses Prosus manages jumped 84% to $1.27 billion. The company was targeting more than $7.3 billion in revenue and $1.1 billion in adjusted Ebitda for fiscal 2026.

The board declared a full-year dividend of 0.28 euros a share, up 40% on year.

Write to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 29, 2026 06:00 ET (10:00 GMT)