Naspers trading statement

Naspers released a trading update as the market gong rang. I mean, as the electronic bell rang. The last trade in the spot market crossed the ticker, that sort of thing. We do not have a closing bell in the literal sense, the time just gives up the ghost on the spot market. Here goes the trading statement, which can be found on the SENS link on the Naspers website:

We expect core headline earnings per share to be between 25% (2 726 cents) and 30% (2 835 cents) higher than the comparable period's 2 181 cents.

So, by that measure core headline earnings per share puts the company's valuation, as per their share price (1832.69 ZAR) at 64 times. Of course this argument of how to value Naspers has been going on for an absolute age, they often trade as a proxy for Tencent, which trades on a 47 times multiple. At the first quarter reporting period, Tencent was able to grow earnings year on year at 22 percent, you could still argue that the PE unwind (the share price growing into the earnings) is possibly not what the market would like. Like Oliver Twist and his porridge, the market always wants more. Porridge is apparently being generous, the kids back then had to eat gruel, more drinking than eating.

The trading statement continues:

It is expected that earnings per share for the year ended 31 March 2015, will be between 135% (3 422 cents) and 145% (3 567 cents) higher compared to the prior period's 1 456 cents, mainly as a consequence of gains recognised by our associates on the sale and remeasurement to fair value of investments. These gains have been excluded from both core headline earnings and headline earnings per share.

Nice. The results are on the 29th of June, I am actually peeved that I am going to miss those. Ah well, you can't win them all. The market has responded in a sort of favourable fashion to these results, even though it looks a little like a marginal miss on earnings. Year to date the stock is up 20 percent, from the recent highs in April, the stock is down nearly 7 percent. Over the last five years the stock is up a whopping 548 percent.