Strategic Product Portfolio Management and Global Value Creation A Regulation Aware Governance Framework for Digital Platform Investment Portfolios Master's thesis in Management and Economics of Innovation

Abstract

Digital platform holding companies create value through more than capital allocation and market selection. Their performance also depends on whether ownership can be translated into effective governance and whether shared technological capabilities can move lawfully across jurisdictions with different data protection and artificial intelligence regimes. This thesis examines Prosus N.V., a global consumer internet investor spanning food delivery, fintech, classifieds, ecommerce, and travel, as a single embedded case study. Using public corporate disclosures, regulatory instruments, and academic literature, it asks how Prosus selects and prioritises portfolio opportunities (RQ1), how ownership structures shape governance depth and value creation (RQ2), and how regulation and digital sovereignty affect the integration of AI, data, and platform capabilities (RQ3). The analysis finds that portfolio growth has been acquisition led and ecosystem oriented, while governance feasibility and regulatory exposure were historically underweighted at selection. Tencent serves as an external ecosystem and financial benchmark under minority influence, whereas iFood is a controlled operating platform. Governance depth tracks ownership position but is not determined by ownership alone. Byju's full write off followed interacting market, operating, financing, reporting, and governance failures. Prosus's minority position constrained monitoring and intervention but did not independently cause the collapse. Prosus's branded Large Commerce Model programme may create parenting advantage, although its architecture and portfolio wide performance effects are not established by public evidence. The thesis develops four regulation aware governance tools: a two stage legal admissibility gate followed by two datum sensitive Pugh runs; a Portfolio Balance Model separating legal ownership, functional role, and economic exposure; a tiered Lifecycle Governance Trigger Framework linked to observable events and feasible rights; and a Regulatory Exposure and Capability Governance Logic that selects centralised, modular or federated, locally autonomous, or ring fenced designs only after legality is established. These qualitative risk and diligence filters feed a formal merger and acquisition stage gate and financial underwriting process. They do not replace valuation, investment committee judgement, or transaction specific legal advice. Together they form a Three Dimensional Portfolio Governance Framework spanning commercial and technical, architectural, and sovereign and regulatory dimensions.