Few investment professionals globally can rival the successes of Charles Searle, chief executive of MIH, the corporate venturing unit of South Africa-based media group Naspers, and winner of the Global Corporate Venturing Lifetime Achievement award.
The group secured its first key success by targeting expansion in China with exceptionally good timing, riding much of the exceptional growth of that country during the last decade. As success in emerging markets has become more important in the world of corporate venturing, we think it is fitting to celebrate the achievement of an individual who has managed to secure success in international markets which many have found difficult to navigate.
Searle helped secure for MIH a $32m investment in China-based internet company Tencent early in the millennium. This has since turned into a stake worth more than $20bn as the company has grown to become China’s largest and most used internet service portal. With the halo of this success, MIH then went on to secure a stake in Russia-based internet company Mail.ru in 2006 at a reported $550m valuation. Mail.ru now has a $5.6bn market capitalisation on the London Stock Exchange. Searle sits on the boards of both Tencent and Mail.ru.
Naspers invested in the two companies following difficulties setting up its own internet portal in the Chinese market. The Tencent experience taught Naspers instead to seek out companies with experienced local management teams with big visions.
Because of his positions at both these companies, and his role seeking investments for Naspers, Global Corporate Venturing named Searle number one on our inaugural Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist 100 last year, which documented the key players in the industry.
The group continues to target emerging markets, demonstrating investment discipline, as through DST Global, the investment fund of Mail.ru co-founder Yuri Milner, Naspers has been offered stakes in many of the hottest US startups, including social network Facebook, daily deals website Groupon and gaming company Zynga. MIH opted to invest directly in Milner’s DST fund for Russia, but has eschewed backing the more high-profile US fund. Naspers is now pursuing a strategy in ecommerce, after buying central and eastern European company Tradus in 2007 for £946m (then nearly $2bn). It has subsequently made investments in ecommerce businesses such as central and eastern Europe-based Netretail, India-based Flipkart and Buytheprice.com, as well as Romania-based online retailer eMag. The group is also exploring investments in classified advertising, while it now directs its activities in online gaming to Tencent and Mail.ru.
Searle joined Naspers in 1997 and has been instrumental not just in the initial deals but the strategy of holding on to the winning investments of so-called real business and reaping returns from dividends and joining up portfolio companies through the company’s strategy days so lessons can be learned and applied across borders.
He joined Naspers after working at communications company Cable & Wireless in corporate finance from 1994 to 1997 and at accountancy firm Touche Ross, which merged to become part of what is now Deloitte, from 1989 to 1994.
Searle’s career at Naspers deserves celebrating, and we expect, given his track record, many more emerging market successes.