Market players see Naspers’ decision to elevate iFood CEO Fabricio Bloisi to head the group, which includes Amsterdam-listed Prosus, as a signal that the business wants an operator who can help to grow and scale its e-commerce portfolio, which is on the cusp of making real profits.
On Friday, the group announced that Bloisi had been appointed CEO of the JSE’s largest group with effect from July 1. This came as a surprise for many who had expected interim CEO Ervin Tu to get the role.
Bloisi was previously the CEO of Prosus’ Latin American food delivery business, iFood. He had acquired iFood in 2013 when it was a 20-person start-up and has since grown it — rapidly and profitably — to become Brazil’s leading food delivery company.
Prosus took full control of iFood for €1.5bn in 2022, about R27.4bn at the time.
“Fabricio is an entrepreneur with a proven track record. His appointment as CEO places innovation and entrepreneurship at the heart of the group,” said Koos Bekker, the group’s chair.
During an investor call, Bekker highlighted Bloisi’s credentials, saying the board had valued qualities such as an engineering background and experience with starting and scaling businesses. The board considered as many as 60 candidates for the role.
In September 2023, former boss Bob van Dijk was replaced by Tu, the group’s CIO, on an interim basis.
Van Dijk had been at the helm of the technology investment group for almost 10 years, having been appointed as CEO of Naspers in April 2014, and becoming CEO of Prosus when it listed on Amsterdam’s Euronext in 2019.
The group thanked Tu “for his strong leadership” over the past eight months. Tu takes on a new position as president and chief investment officer.
Market players appear to have understood the group’s rationale for the appointment.
Alec Abraham, senior equity analyst at Sasfin Wealth, said: “With Fabricio Bloisi being an operator and start-up entrepreneur, the implication is that the focus may shift more to operating excellence of the group’s operating assets rather than new asset allocation and investments. The latter is an area that Ervin Tu acknowledged on the investor call has been wanting in the recent past.”
This was echoed by Philip Short, portfolio manager at Flagship Asset Management, who said: “Naspers, outside Tencent, invests in start-ups. Start-ups are by their nature entrepreneur driven. So maybe Fabricio is more suited to the role given his background and mindset.”
Best of both worlds
The group appears to now have the best of both worlds with Bloisi as CEO and Tu as CIO.
Initially “the formal appointment of a new CEO [had] not garnered much of a positive or negative reaction by the market given that Fabricio Bloisi is a new name to many”, said Matt Swart, equity analyst at PSG Wealth.
However, by the close of trading on Friday both Naspers and Prosus shares were down 4.09% and 2.81%, respectively. Tencent shares, the biggest driver of sentiment for the Naspers stable, were up 0.36% on the day, indicating that the negative movement for Naspers and Prosus was due to the CEO appointment.
The group has had a strong first half of 2024 in the stock market with both shares up almost 30% since January.
For now, investors are at least happy to have certainty about the CEO’s office, with focus now on execution.
“The positive takeaways are that the group has finally made the appointment, eight months after Bob van Dijk stepped down, removing some of the uncertainty regarding leadership going into the group’s financial results expected towards the end of June. Fabricio Bloisi has proved himself in emerging markets — which is where the group is focusing its growth opportunities,” Swart said.
Bloisi will take over a group undergoing the largest JSE share buyback yet.
The group says its strategic goals remain unchanged, and it is on target to deliver on its commitments, including achieving consolidated e-commerce trading profit during the second half of the 2024 financial year.
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