Naspers Limited (JSE:NPN) (LSE:NPSN) today announced that it has acquired 91% of the share capital of Brazilian e-commerce group BuscaPé.com Inc. for an amount of US$342m. The acquisition will be funded from available resources.

Headquartered in São Paulo, the BuscaPé group is a leading provider of e-commerce services in Latin America. Its various properties enable consumers to make informed purchase decisions and transact on the internet. The core business generates lead-referral revenues from merchants and other listing providers.

The group started some ten years ago from the basis of comparison shopping. Today BuscaPé is Latin America’s top such network for new and used goods and one of the region’s best-known internet brands. It is the exclusive provider of comparison shopping solutions to more than 100 portals and websites in Latin America, including Microsoft, Globo and Abril, with over 10 million products and over 320 000 online and offline stores.

In recent years BuscaPé acquired a competitor, Bondfaro. It also expanded with QueBarato, the leading free-classifieds network in Latin America. Electronic payments can be done with Pagamento Digital. In addition it has an affiliate advertising network named Lomadee, an e-commerce research business, eBit, and a fraud risk assessment service, FControl.

The BuscaPé group has a strong management team with a proven track record. Four of the initial founders are still with the group and hold strategic positions. The team will remain in the business with material personal interests locked in for up to five years.

Antonie Roux, head of internet at Naspers, said that “BuscaPé gives us a fast-growing business in line with our e-commerce focus. It’s a diversified internet platform: a whole spectrum of business models within the e-commerce value chain across core Latin American markets.”

E-commerce is one of the most promising areas of the internet. Through the acquisition of Allegro and Ricardo (Tradus), Naspers built up considerable knowledge in this field. BuscaPé CEO Romero Rodrigues said that “given Naspers’ extensive experience in the internet, they can help us grow to the next level. Some future collaboration between Allegro and BuscaPé is likely”.

Latin America is of particular interest to the group. The region is home to some 550 million people. Favourable demographics, rising disposable incomes, underleveraged consumers and a less-penetrated internet market provides a good investment backdrop.

Hein Brand, CEO of Naspers’s operations in Latin America, commented that “after investments in Abril and Compera nTime, Naspers has developed a good understanding of the fast-growing Brazilian market. BuscaPé is one of the few established players in the industry, and can grow further”.

Important legal information:

This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “believe”, “anticipate”, “intend”, “seek”, “will”, “plan”, “could”, “may”, “endeavour” and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements. While these forward-looking statements represent our judgements and future expectations, a number of risks, uncertainties and other important factors could cause actual developments and results to differ materially from our expectations. These include factors that could adversely affect our businesses and financial performance. We are not under any obligation to (and expressly disclaim any such obligation to) update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Naspers:

Naspers is a multinational media company with principal operations in electronic media (including pay television, internet and the provision of related technologies) and print media (publishing, distribution and printing of magazines, newspapers and books).The group creates media content, builds brand names around it, and manages the platforms distributing the content. Naspers’s most significant operations are located in South Africa, elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, China, Russia, eastern Europe, the Netherlands, Brazil and India.