Louise Stuart, mergers and acquisitions executive, Naspers
There are few locations as well suited to kiteboarding than South Africa’s southern coast, which is why in her spare time Louise Stuart, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) executive at media and commerce company Naspers, likes “to get out and enjoy the fruits of living in Cape Town, such as kite surfing”.
Not that she seems to have too much spare time.
When proposing Stuart as one of the Rising Stars, Charles Searle, CEO of internet listed assets at Naspers, said: “She was closely involved with our recently announced substantial further investment in Avito – classifieds in Russia – and the merger of certain Naspers classifieds assets in several markets with Schibsted Media Group last year among numerous other transactions.”
The Avito deal was complicated. Stuart described it as a “deal that started off in 2011 as the acquisition of the number two classified player in Russia, Slando, which we subsequently merged with the market leader, Avito for a minority share and has recently lead to a larger transaction where we have taken a controlling position in Avito”.
The Schibsted deal in November 2014 was equally challenging, requiring four groups to agree shareholdings for joint ventures with varying levels of ownership stakes in four markets. Schibsted and Naspers, as well as Telenor and Singapore Press Holdings, set up joint ventures for the development of their online classifieds platforms in Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh.
Stuart’s background helped on these deals. She was previously at Actis, an emerging market focused private equity group spun out from the UK government, for nearly five years until September 2010. Before that she was a senior consultant at Gemini Consulting.
At Actis, under her maiden name of Louise Thomas, Stuart’s projects included helping its chief investment officer review deals across Africa, China, Latin America and south and southeast Asia.
She said: “After spending five years at a generalist private equity firm, I wanted to focus on investing in the internet space specifically, because that is where I believed the world was moving towards, while retaining the focus on high-growth emerging markets. Hence the attraction of working in M&A for a firm such as Naspers, which takes minority and majority stakes in companies as diverse as Tencent in China, to Ola in Brazil and Mail.ru in Russia.
“The internet sector is a space that moves faster than the speed of lightning, with historic assumptions constantly being challenged and new opportunities opening up.
“As a result, we have to work hard to stay at the forefront of how the space is evolving and consequently where to invest to make best use of our capital.”
Adrenalin-chaser Stuart’s future challenges then, are similar to those facing other kitesurfing internet investors with a taste for being swept along, such as Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the Google founders, who also reportedly have a passion for the sport.
