By Toby Sterling
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Prosus NV
Analysts polled by Refinitiv had forecast net profit of $3.57 billion.
Prosus, which listed in Amsterdam in September 2019, holds a 31% stake in Tencent worth $186 billion at current prices.
However, the operating loss at operations the company owns outright – which include online classifieds, payments, and food delivery businesses – widened to $593 million from $422 million in the same period a year earlier.
CEO Bob van Dijk said in a statement the year had seen good revenue growth, notably in food delivery and improved profitability in the e-commerce businesses, particularly the classifieds segment.
Prosus owns or owns stakes in classified companies OLX Group and LetGo; in payments companies PayU and Remitly; and in food delivery companies iFood of Brazil, Swiggy of India and Berlin-based Delivery Hero
On June 18, Prosus warned the novel coronavirus outbreak could hurt its performance in the post-March period.
It repeated that warning in Monday’s report, but did not give a detailed outlook.
“While the global societal and economic impacts of COVID-19 are likely to persist for some time, we are confident of our ability to weather the storm,” Van Dijk said.
“We expect that group businesses are likely to benefit from a further acceleration of the underlying trend toward online.”
The company’s shares closed at 79.50 euros ($89.30) in Amsterdam, up 19% year to date.
($1 = 0.8902 euros)
(Reporting by Toby Sterling; editing by David Goodman and Barbara Lewis)
