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(Bloomberg) -- Dutch e-commerce investor Prosus NV plans to invest in artificial intelligence across its businesses, Chief Executive Officer Fabricio Bloisi said, as he seeks to double the company’s value.
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The Euronext-listed technology firm, worth over $100 billion, has more than two billion customers across the world, and is looking for companies to leverage its reach and use AI to harness the next stage of e-commerce, Bloisi said in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s Anna Edwards.
“We are going to re-imagine e-commerce through AI and I am confident that Prosus will contribute quite a lot in emerging market services,” he said.
In July, Prosus and its controlling shareholder Naspers Ltd. offered Bloisi a moonshot pay package in which he could earn $100 million if he doubles Prosus’s market value by June 30, 2028. Bloisi told Caroline Hyde at the Bloomberg Tech Summit in London on Tuesday that Prosus has managed to cut costs by 30% through AI, and that 60% of its customer support is now done through AI.
Bloisi is contending with the legacy of a complicated business structure that stumped his predecessor Bob van Dijk. The group’s investment in Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. has distorted Prosus’s stock price, and has created a gap between the value of the stake and the rest of the group’s businesses.
“My goal is to also make Prosus a more balanced company, and to make the rest of our portfolio as big as our participation in Tencent,” Bloisi said.
The new CEO will be scouring the globe as the group seeks to replicate the investment success it had with Tencent. Prosus, through Naspers, made a blockbuster investment in the Chinese game-maker in 2001, when it paid $34 million for a 50% stake. Today, it owns about a quarter of the company, which has a total market value of about $500 million.
“We own 25% of Tencent, it’s the company with the highest number internet patents in the world,” Bloisi said on stage at the Bloomberg Tech Summit, adding that the company is also investing heavily in AI in India, South Africa and Hungary.
“Europe needs more investment in AI too, that is why Prosus is here,” he added.
As part of its plans to close the value gap between its Tencent stake and the rest of its businesses, the group has been slowly selling down the stake it holds of the Chinese firm and buying back its own shares. Prosus has made a profitability push among its other companies, and sold some of its businesses that were losing money.