Banks score nearly R500m in Naspers’s Prosus listing

Three investment banks – Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley – will be paid €7.2 million each, a total of €21.6 million or R367 million, for their roles as lead financial advisors in Naspers’s listing of Prosus in Amsterdam.

A further eight investment banks acting as other financial advisors will each be paid €0.9 million or R15 million for their work. These banks include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, ICBC Standard Bank and ING. Together, the 11 banks will be paid €28.8 million – nearly R500 million – for their work on the listing.

The prospectus published by Prosus on Monday shows that the amounts paid to the banks comprise two thirds of the total estimated expenses for the group’s listing of €43.3 million (R736 million).

Lawyers are the next best-paid. Allen & Overy, which advised Prosus and Naspers on Dutch and US law, will be paid €3.8 million, while Webber Wentzel, which advised the two firms in South Africa, will be paid €3.3 million (R56 million). Linklaters LLP and Glyn Marais Inc will be paid around R16 million and R4 million respectively.

The fees paid to Euronext for the listing on the Amsterdam exchange total €2 million (R34 million), while the JSE will be paid around R3.5 million. Investec, in its role as the company’s JSE sponsor, will be paid R2.6 million for the listing. The Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM or Stichting Autoriteit Financiële Markten’) will be paid around R1.1 million.

So-called “other expenses and disbursements”, which include administrative expenses and publication costs, are expected to total €1.1 million (R19 million).

The separate listing of Naspers’s internet assets was approved by 95.5% of common (N) shareholders at the extraordinary general meeting immediately following Friday’s AGM. The listing will take place on September 11.

Hilton Tarrant works at YFM. He can still be contacted at hilton@moneyweb.co.za

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