A photo of Qihoo Headquarters, China's online security manufacturer, located in Beijing. (Photo : www.vcpost.com/china.org)
Qihoo 360 is delisting from the New York Stock Exchange, while Opera Software suspended trading of its stocks on the Oslo Stock Exchange since Friday as the two companies negotiate Qihoo’s offer of $1.2 billion to purchase the Norwegian browser maker.
The consortium of Chinese investors, called Golden Brick and led by Qihoo, made a 71 Norwegian krone offer per share which is 56 percent higher than the volume-weighted average stock price of Opera in January 2016, reported TechCrunch. Technology News reported that the board of Opera has recommended that stock owners accept the offer. The Norwegian firm said that major shareholders who control a combined 33 percent share of Opera are amenable to the offer.
Telenor ASA, the largest telco in Norway, established Opera in 1994 as a research project. Opera controls about 5.7 percent of the world’s online browser market as the sixth-biggest in the world as of Q4 2015.
Besides Qihoo, an Internet giant in China, other members of the consortium are Yonglian (Yinchuan) Investment Co., private-equity company Golden Brick Silk Road Fund Management (Shenzhen) LLP and Beijing Kunlun Tech Co.
Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera, said in a statement, “We believe that the Consortium, with its breadth of expertise and strong market position in emerging markets, will be a strong owner of Opera. The Consortium’s ownership will strengthen Opera’s position to serve our users and partners with even greater innovation, and to accelerate our plans of expansion and growth.”
Chinese firms are in a buying mode since the start of 2016 amid the slowdown in China’s economy and weakness of the yuan. Since January, Chinese companies bought $60 billion through takeovers. Among the companies they have purchased is Syngenta AS, a manufacturer of pesticide in Switzerland, acquired by China National Chemical Corp. for $43 billion.
