Yesterday German tech investor, Rocket Internet, stated that it has finally divested from the African e-commerce giant, Jumia. Bettina Curtze, Head of finance and investments of Rocket Internet made this revelation recently while speaking to journalists.
Jumia had held an 11% stake in Jumia as of November 8 2019 and sold between then and the onset of the coronavirus.
She however declined to reveal what proceeds Rocket Internet made from the sale, but said they were included in the 2.1 billion euros ($2.30 billion) of net cash the company had as of March 31, 2020.
Rocket Internet helped set up Jumia way back in 2012 and as at July 2013, it was regarded as world’s largest incubator of internet startups. It was founded in Berlin in 2007 by three brothers: Marc, Oliver and Alexander Samwer
As far back as 2018, it was reported that the company was planning to divest from Jumia via an IPO which it did and got listed as the first African tech company on the New York Stock Exchange in April 2019
The IPO went well, opening at $45, briefly rising 75% before plummeting after Citron Research released a report in which it accused Jumia of being a well orchestrated fraud.
In February 2020, Jumia reported EUR49.3 million in revenue for the fourth quarter, up 14% compared with the year earlier. Its loss for the period rose to EUR63.6 million from EUR53.1 million. The company said it had EUR232 million of cash as of the end of 2019.
Though Rocket Internet started a lot of companies in the past, it has exited from most of them. It currently only holds stakes in furniture site Home24 and Global Fashion Group, which sells fashion online, plus stakes in more than 200 private companies
In its results released recently for FY 2019, Rocket Internet SE reported 67 million euros (73.2 million dollars) of consolidated revenue and a consolidated profit of 280 million euros (306.2 million dollars), representing 1.90 euros (2.08 dollars) earnings per share compared to 1.28 euros earnings per share in FY 2018.
