In the subreddit r/WallStreetBets, a popular term for when an investment goes up is “tendies” — as in chicken tenders.
Why? Well, the answer to that is less important than this fun fact: Tencent — the ~$800B Chinese tech giant — posted tendies of $120B in 2020 on its investment portfolio.
Tencent’s claim to fame is the superapp WeChat
The app has been likened to a combination of Uber, Twitter, DoorDash, Venmo, and WhatsApp in one.
But the company is also one of the “world’s biggest and savviest tech investors,” according to The Information:
Highlights for Tencent include:
- ~1.2k portfolio companies (100 public, 1.1k private)
- Gain of $120B in 2020 was 6x the company’s profit for the year
- A total spend of $80B to build these stakes, now worth $280B
- At one time, it owned 5% of Tesla (it’s down to ~0.5% now, but the company made billions on the bet)
- It’s a very active game investor, including a big stake in Fortnite publisher Epic Games
Its biggest gains in 2020 include…
… Meituan (Chinese delivery app), Pinduoduo (Chinese social app), Sea (Southeast Asia superapp), and Snap (US social app).
One caveat: These are unrealized gains as Tencent has not sold the stakes… but if they do, there will be no amount of breadcrumbs in the world to make that amount of tendies.
