In these tough times, many financial advisers say the best portfolios are those that are diversified. When it comes to determining the kinds of companies worth investing in, the same advice may hold true.

According to Jack Dzierwa, global strategist and portfolio manager at U.S. Global Investors, long-term investors looking for a great buy need not look further than Naspers (NPSNY), a multinational media company based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Dzierwa, who holds the stock in his Global Emerging Markets Fund (GEMFX), believes the company’s broad scope and unique position within the emerging markets space makes it one of the most “sophisticated” companies in the world and has primed its stock for growth.

Though it began only as a print media company, Naspers now has its hand in print, technology, pay TV and Internet-based businesses. It is the latter two that are the company’s driving forces, Dzierwa said.

Pay TV, or subscription-based television services, has seen tremendous growth over the past year and promises to be Naspers’s gateway to growth in years to come. The company’s latest earnings report showed an annual gain of more than half a million new subscribers to pay TV services. Naspers CEO Koos Bekker attributed the gain to the global economic downturn, which he said has led consumers to opt for “affordable” forms of entertainment.

In addition, a recent survey of South Africa’s middle class asked respondents to name the five services they could not live without; MultiChoice, the paid-TV arm of Naspers made the list, Dzierwa said.

The company has also made some wise investments in a number of Internet-related services. Naspers owns 35% of Tencent, which operates QQ, the largest Internet messaging system in China. The company also has a stake in Mail.ru, the most popular email system in Russia, and, last year, acquired Tradus, which Dzierwa refers to as “the eBay (EBAY) of Eastern and Western Europe.”

“It’s considered the one-stop [shop] for emerging market media,” he said.

One of the most unique aspects of Naspers is its localized management strategy, said Dzierwa. With much of its business entrenched in developing markets like China, India and Brazil, the company relies on local partners and management groups to ensure each investment is tailored to the individual area; the company’s executives do not make blind decisions from headquarters.

“When they go to certain countries and they take a minority stake, they are not calling from Johannesburg,” said Dzierwa. “They give a lot of flexibility to the local partners.”

Unique management strategy or not, Naspers is still a part of the media industry -- an industry that has been hit hard by falling advertising revenue as the economic downturn rages on. But Dzierwa advises investors not to worry, as the company’s exposure to pay TV and transaction-generated revenue prevents it from falling in the same category as media companies entirely dependent on advertising revenue.

“This is defensive media exposure,” he said.