Ucommune Claims Hongtai in Largest Acquisition of China’s Office Sharing Industry
Ucommune announced it has fully acquired Hontai in what is the largest acquisition the office sharing industry. Ucommune is valued at nearly 9 billion yuan.
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After the acquisition, Ucommune’s total office area expanded to 400,000 square meters. Ucommune now has 120 offices in 35 cities, including Haikou, Hefei, Jinan, Guangzhou and Dongguan. About 5,000 enterprises have settled in Ucommune space and more than 100,000 people are registered as members. The merger will further consolidate the position of Ucommune in the office sharing industry, as well as integrate industry resources and improve enterprise services and community activities.
At present, Ucommune has established a strong and cohesive business social networking platform with nearly 5,000 companies settled in and more than 100,000 members. This platform provides comprehensive services for enterprises.
Entrepreneur Michael Yu and banker Tiger Sheng established Aplus Fund in November 2014. Their decision to become Ucommune shareholders greatly boosted the team’s reputation.
Ucommune and Aplus Fund built the core platform ecology including its shared office space, accelerator, intelligent hardware incubator and new third board platform.
Michael Yu, chairman and CEO of New Oriental and co-founder of Aplus Fund, said the merger would promote industry development. These excellent enterprises can play their complementary advantages and work together to build up the Chinese office sharing industry, to improve enterprise services and to boost Chinese industry transformation, he said.
“We need to understand what the main opportunities are in China in the next 10 to 20 years,” said Tiger Sheng, co-founder of Aplus Fund, “Major changes will appear in overall consumption upgrades and ecology. Shared offices will have a great opportunity. After the merger, Ucommune will have brighter prospects.”
“China is one of the world’s largest economies with the most dynamic creativity,” Ucommune founder and Chairman Mao Daqing said, “I believe that after the merger, Ucommune will energize the Chinese office sharing industry.”
Hongtai founder and CEO Wang Shengjiang said, “Chinese real estate has entered the era of stock assets. In activating this 300 trillion yuan worth of assets, office sharing has a broad stage. The merger is a strategic decision that complies with the trend. It can integrate the best resources of both sides, release their maximal synergistic value and provide better services.” Wang said the Hongtai team will play its professional role in entrepreneurial investment and special town development after the merger.
