Naspers

Naspers is corporate biology's clearest example of obligate mutualism. The company's $32 million investment in Tencent in 2001 has ballooned to over $140 billion—representing roughly 80% of Naspers' total value. This isn't diversification; it's ecological dependency. Like cleaner fish servicing reef predators or mycorrhizal fungi feeding forest trees, Naspers' survival is biochemically linked to Tencent's health.

In FY2025, this symbiosis delivered spectacular returns: core headline earnings per share surged 87% to $31.42, driven by Tencent's profitability and Naspers' own e-commerce turnaround. But examine the relationship's structure. Naspers holds 31% of Tencent (trimmed from 32% to fund share buybacks), receiving dividends ($759 million in FY2024) while gradually liquidating stakes to finance other ventures. This is resource extraction from a keystone species—sustainable only if the host thrives.

The rest of Naspers' portfolio attempts to replicate the Tencent magic: investments in iFood, Delivery Hero, Swiggy, SkillSoft, Stack Overflow, PayU. E-commerce operations swung from breakeven to $443 million profit in FY2025, with revenue growing 21% to $6.2 billion. Yet these ventures remain saplings compared to the Tencent oak. New CEO Fabricio Bloisi, who built iFood into Latin America's dominant food delivery platform, brings operational credibility—shifting culture from passive investor to active operator.

The structural risk is concentration. Naspers trades at 36% discount to net asset value precisely because markets understand the fragility. If Tencent stumbles—regulatory pressure in China, market saturation, competitive displacement—the entire ecosystem collapses. This is the mutualism trap: specialization creates efficiency but eliminates redundancy. Clownfish and anemone thrive together; separate them and both die. Naspers has built a corporate structure on the same biological foundation.