In the recent past, I've advocated for owning Chinese internet giant Tencent (OTC: TCEHY) not via the stock itself, but rather through South African firm Naspers (OTC: NPSNY). While Naspers began as a newspaper and media publisher in 1915, today it mainly stands as a global technology investment firm. Most notably, the company made perhaps the greatest tech bet of all time, with a $32 million investment in Tencent back in 2001 -- a stake now worth nearly $130 billion.
The Tencent success has come to overshadow Naspers itself, as well as its other investments. In fact, the success of Tencent recently became a big problem, as Naspers grew too big for the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, making up more than 20% of the index this year. And the bigger Tencent got, the bigger the discount at which Naspers traded relative to the value of its Tencent stake alone.