Tencent raises wager on 58.com after selloff

Tencent Holdings Ltd, China's second-biggest Internet company, is ramping up its bet on 58.com after a selloff wiped out a third of the company's market value last quarter.

Three months after purchasing a 19.9 percent stake in the Beijing-based company, Tencent scooped up $117 million more of 58.com's American depositary shares in the secondary market from Sept 22 to Sept 29, boosting its stake to 24.6 percent in the process, according to an Oct 2 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Shares in 58.com, a Craigslist-like site, tumbled 31 percent in the third quarter, the fourth-worst performance in a Bloomberg index of 79 Chinese companies listed in the US.

About $1.4 billion of the company's market value was erased in the period as growing competition in the online classifieds sector prompted 58.com to give a revenue forecast that was below estimates. The company remains an attractive target to Tencent, the leading Chinese provider of instant-messaging services, as it seeks to compete with rivals including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd for online consumers, according to Praveen Menon, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence in New York.