Prosus upgraded to “buy” as Jefferies sees 24% upside from Ecosystem Strategy

Investing.com -- Jefferies has upgraded Prosus (AS:PRX) to a “buy” rating, setting a new price target of €65.5 per share, up from €37, in a note dated Wednesday. 

Shares of the Dutch investment group were up 1.1% at 07:10 ET (12:10 GMT).

The brokerage cited the company’s evolving strategy under chief executive Fabricio Bloisi, who took over in July 2024, as central to the reassessment.

Prosus is moving from an investor-owner of technology firms to what Jefferies calls an “investor-owner-operator.” 

Bloisi has repeatedly framed the approach as a way of making assets “worth more than the sum of their parts by virtue of being in the Prosus Ecosystem”.

The company’s shares have long traded at a discount of 30% to 40% compared with net asset value, largely because of its heavy reliance on Tencent, which makes up about 78% of NAV. 

That discount has narrowed to about 29%, helped by Prosus selling down Tencent shares to fund open-ended buybacks. 

But Jefferies noted the gap still effectively values the firm’s $28 billion in unlisted assets and $10 billion in non-Tencent listed assets at zero.

Jefferies said the so-called “Ecosystem Strategy,” focused on food delivery and fintech, could help unlock that value.

In an October 2024 letter, Bloisi set out his ambition “to create another $100bn of value in the Prosus ecosystem by building and investing in fast-growing and profitable businesses.”

At Prosus’s June 2025 Capital Markets Day, Bloisi emphasized how artificial intelligence would underpin the effort. 

He described the in-house Large Commerce Model, built on first-party data, as a way “to develop a deeper understanding of a customer’s intent to serve up a more personalised user experience.”

Jefferies cut its conglomerate discount assumption on Prosus to 10% from 35%, supporting the higher price target. 

The new valuation is based on a sum-of-the-parts model using market prices for listed assets and multiples for unlisted ones. 

The brokerage pointed to Prosus’s pending acquisition of Just Eat Takeaway.com, its December 2024 purchase of Despegar, and the potential for a renewed push to take over Delivery Hero as evidence of its expansion drive.

At the time of the report, Prosus’s shares were priced at €52.81, leaving room for a 24% gain.