Naspers invests in eMag

Naspers, international online player, invested in eMag, biggest Romanian e-commerce and one of the important players in the field in Eastern Europe.

Following the investment, Naspers will own 70% shares in eMag, with rest of shares being splat between Iulian Stanciu (21.6%) and Radu Apostolescu (8.4%). Naspers decided to acquire shares in eMag because of e-store’s position in regional retail, with the group intending to capitalize on local company’s know-how in order to expand the group in the region.

Iulian Stanciu will be managing the company as General Manager eMag, while Radu Apostolescu will be Development Director.

eMag will expand in the main markets in Eastern Europe, with a first step made in this direction being this year’s entrance on Bulgarian market. Also, eMag intends to expand its operations, in short time, on other big markets in the region.

Naspers is an important international online player in Asia, South America, Africa, Russia and Central Europe. The company has had a turnover of $5.3Bn for the last financial year and it’s value is estimated, at Johannesburg Stock Exchange, at $21.6BN. In China and Russia, Naspers owns the most used online platforms: Tencent (with over 800M registered users) and Mail.ru (70% internet traffic in Russia).

In Romania, Naspers owns PayU Romania and the online platforms autovit.ro, mercador.ro, compari.ro. Also, the group is one of the shareholders of Fashion Days.

We are happy to start working together with eMag’s team. Through their results and achievements, eMag proved to be a leader in innovation and implementation in e-commerce. We are eager to work together in the following years in order to develop and expand operations on regional online marke

Cristina Berta

Head of M&A Naspers Europe

eMAG had, in 2011, a turnover of Euro 145M. The company has a team that has, now, over 450 members and has in its portfolio over 60,000 products, developed by over 400 international brands.

For me, maybe the most important component of this transaction is recognizing the value of the company and of the results of the team we were building during all these yeras. We showed that, in Romania, the entrepreneurship is functioning, that you can develop a solid business, solid enough to make an international IT giant to transform in it’s spear-lance to develop its group in the region. It is an important step for the local industry and a signal that Romanian players can be attractive for big international investors

Iulian Stanciu

General Manager eMag.

11 years ago, we were starting our way on a non-existent market and we were adapting a commerce model that seemed like it was coming from movies from Romania’s point of view. With no clear plans and without knowing where we will get. After all these years, one of the international online giants comes to Romania and wants to continue and replicate in the region all our plans. Does anyone has any doubts that the American dream can be lived in Rmania?

Radu Apostolescu

co-founder & Development Director eMag

The transaction will start produce effects after Romanian Competition Council decision related to this change of shareholders