Shares of Naspers and Prosus were on track for their best days since listing on Wednesday morning, benefiting as Tencent recovered from its recent brutal sell-off, surging by almost a quarter.
Tencent, which lost almost 10% on Tuesday and even more on Monday, rebounded 22% in early trade, with Asian markets also cheered by a report that China was planning to ease the strict nature of its Covid-19 containment policies.
In early trade Naspers was up 18.32% to R1,767.40, while Prosus was trading 18.35% higher at R850.
Once worth R4-trillion, their combined market caps on Tuesday came to about R2.5-trillion, recovering to about R3-trillion on Wednesday morning.
Prosus had its largest one-day drop on the JSE in more than two decades on Tuesday, losing more than R100bn in value, after Chinese internet giant Tencent was battered by a report that its mobile payment and digital wallet service, WeChat Pay, faces a record fine for allegedly violating money-laundering regulations in China.
Analysts had noted that the severe sell-off of Tencent, rooted in Chinese regulatory concerns, was speculative.
Old Mutual Wealth Private Client Securities chief investment officer Andrew Dittberner said in a note on Tuesday that the 10% sell-off for Tencent had wiped off about $40bn (R602bn) in value from the tech giant, but it was questionable whether any fine would approach this amount.
With Mudiwa Gavaza
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