In a press statement released by MIH Internet Europe yesterday, Christian Unger, CEO of MIH Internet Europe, said a British trade journal called ACQ Finance Magazine has singled out the acquisition of Tradus, operator of auction platforms in 13 European countries, by Naspers as the “Deal of the Year 2008″.

Tradus was renamed MIH Internet Europe after the deal. Naspers is a media group with HQ in Cape Town. 

Also look here for the press release (in German).

The Naspers share price dropped in the wake of the deal, on the widely reported view of analysts that Naspers had paid too much for Tradus.

(Unfortunately, I don’t know the magazine, ie. I don’t know how much standing and credibility it has in the market. I’ll put a few questions to it today, such as: What were the criteria; who were the others on the shortlist; is this for the internet only; did they take into account that analysts thought the price was too high).

I’ll report on the answers as soon as I got a response.)

I came, I saw, I got rid of it.

The website of Tradus, the Swiss-based company bought by Naspers in March this year with auction platforms in 13 European countries, vanished from the airwaves recently. Internet users trying to access the Tradus portal, are redirected to Naspers.com, where the Tradus name is also “non-existent”.

[Read on]

First published on my old blog on 2/7/2008. 

The eBay/Louis Vuitton story continued to make waves in the German media today with, among others, another long story in the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD).  [Read on]

First published on my old blog on 1/7/2008. 

This morning the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) carried an article about a decision of a French court, which might be of interest to the people at Naspers and will definitely be of interest to the people at Richemont.  [Read on]