Sina Agrees to Delist from Nasdaq in a $2.6B Deal

Chinese internet giant Sina announced on Sept. 28 that it would go private and delist its US shares, ceasing to trade on Nasdaq where it went public in 2000, after an entity led by Charles Chao, the chairman of Sina, boosted its offer for the company to $43.3 a share in cash. 

The board of the company agreed to a merger which values the firm at $2.59 billion with New Wave Holdings Limited, a group controlled by Sina’s CEO Charles Chao. 

Chao and New Wave also agreed to vote all Ordinary Shares and Class A preference shares of Sina that they beneficially own, which represent approximately 61% of the voting rights attached to the outstanding shares of the company. 

In July, New Wave submitted a preliminary non-binding proposal letter on the matter and said the current offer would be an 18% premium to the closing price on July 2, which is the last trading day before the earlier offer.

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This is not the first time for a Chinese company to delist from the US and consider an IPO in Hong Kong and Shanghai in recent years. 

Chipmaker SMIC chose to delist this June as the US imposed strict export restrictions on the besieged Chinese chip maker.  

Social commerce giants JD.com and Alibaba have also filed IPOs in Hong Kong while Ant Gorup’s dual-listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong later this year has become the spotlight of the industry.

According to Sina, the merger is expected to close during the first quarter of 2021.