Sina suddenly to sell the audience was bought

Xinhua News (Reporter Peng) sina (Nasdaq:sina) yesterday evening issued a notice said, will issue 47 million shares of common stock, for the acquisition of Media (NASDAQ:FMCN) digital outdoor advertising business. With Sina's closing price of 29.24 US dollars yesterday, the deal will reach $1.3 billion trillion, surpassing the 1 billion-dollar record of Alibaba's acquisition of Yahoo China, a new "first case of Chinese internet mergers and acquisitions". Since the early 2003 acquisition of the Dragon, this is Sina quiet five years after the shot again.

Who Buys who

Two years to settle.

Yesterday, Sina and the media group signed the agreement, Sina will issue more than 47 million common shares of the media to buy the focus of the public building TV, frame ads and store ads and other business-related assets. These merged businesses accounted for 52% of the total revenue of the media and 73% of the overall gross margin in nine months 2008 years ago. The media will retain its Internet advertising business, theater advertising business and the traditional outdoor billboard business.

The current transaction has been approved by the Board of directors of both sides without further approval by the shareholders ' meeting. This transaction will be completed in the first half of 2009 if the terms of the transaction and the relevant approval formalities are completed.

The "gossip" that Sina wants to buy the audience began to spread in the industry two years ago. One is the largest Internet advertising company, the other is the largest outdoor and building advertising companies, the alliance can generate new momentum has been the industry's optimistic. But two years ago, the share price was once as high as 60 U.S. dollars, the market value is more than 5 times times Sina, so the industry is rumored to be "the acquisition of Sina".

At the beginning of this year, by the "junk Message door" impact, the share price fell all the way. Then, after the audience announced the exit of the wireless advertising market, its share price is lower. Until the last trading day, the audience closed to 11 U.S. dollars, the market value of 1.42 billion U.S. dollars.

With yesterday's share price, Sina's market value of 1.63 billion U.S. dollars, while the cash reserves reached 562.5 million U.S. dollars, has already exceeded the share of the net worth.

Yesterday, analysts said, "for Sina, in fact such a merger has long been wanted to do, but two years ago, when the market value of 8 billion U.S. dollars, Sina did not have the ability and unwilling to take a subordinate position to do such a merger." ”

After the merger

"A new media oligopoly will be born."

"The global economic environment is bad now, but that's the best time for a big merger," he said. Lubberg, a leading Internet analyst, said yesterday, "the biggest benefit for Sina is that it is likely to transform the building advertising and outdoor advertising clients into online advertisers, so that Sina will be in a position of absolute monopoly, both in terms of revenue and market occupancy." ”

In an interview yesterday, reporters found that almost all the analysts interviewed agreed that "mergers and acquisitions will be the birth of new media oligarchs," the conclusion.

"Every acquisition in Sina's history is at a time when business growth is weak," he said. "Yesterday, a senior executive from a competition company in Sina said," Sina's leading edge in internet advertising is shrinking, and they can only maintain growth through acquisitions. ”

-Dialogue

"Niche business will be relatively independent"

Sina CEO Charles Chao said he had not been in the merger talks with the audience.

Beijing News: Rumors of two years ago, the audience and Sina has already started mergers and acquisitions related negotiations, then what is the situation?

Cao Chao: This is actually just some of the rumors in the industry, of course, we have always known, I also on the board of the public, has never been a similar negotiations.

Beijing News: What changes will happen to Sina after the merger is completed? How is the integration work conducted?

Cao Chao: Basically there will be no change, both businesses will become independent business, of course there will be a lot of cooperation at the business level, but from the point of view of the company's operations, will still be independent operation of the two lines of business.

The Beijing News: the acquisition has refreshed the Chinese Internet Acquisition scale record, how do you feel after leading the deal?

Cao Chao: I haven't thought about anything like this, and I'm not used to thinking about these things from a personal perspective. Or more from the company's point of view will be appropriate.