Tencent Holdings Ltd. cut its stake in Singapore’s Sea Ltd. by selling US$3 billion ($4.1 bil) in shares, sparking a rout in the Southeast Asian gaming and e-commerce company.
The deal will likely inflame speculation Tencent is planning to pare its holdings in some of China’s biggest tech names from Meituan to Kuaishou Technology, as it pivots toward overseas growth and new areas such as the metaverse. China’s social media and gaming leader controlled a portfolio of investments worth US$185 billion at the end of September, Bloomberg Intelligence estimates.
The share sale comes less than a month after Tencent said it would hand out more than US$16 billion of JD.com Inc. stock as a one-time dividend, an effort to divest most of its stake in China’s No. 2 online retailer. The surprise move was seen as being in response to Beijing’s push to curb anticompetitive behaviour and open up closed ecosystems.
