BNC#9 | Hans Hawinkels: He made the "best deal in history," and Naspers still got rid of him
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He spent three months convincing two reluctant shareholders to sell. He drove across the Hong Kong border in a train packed "like sardines" to negotiate with four young founders through an interpreter. He talked Naspers into betting $32 million it barely had on a loss-making Chinese chat app called QQ. It became Tencent, one of the most valuable companies on earth, and the single biggest driver of wealth in almost every South African pension fund. A year later, his contract wasn't renewed. In this fireside chat at BNC#9, Hans Hawinkels breaks a two-decade silence to tell Alec Hogg exactly how the deal got done, why he still doesn't know why he was pushed out, and what he thinks Africa would need to produce its own Tencent.
