(Source: PRNewswire)
SHANGHAI, July 23 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- E-House (China) Holdings Limited ("E-House") (NYSE: EJ), a leading real estate services company in China, and SINA Corporation ("SINA") (Nasdaq GS: SINA), a leading online media company and mobile value-added service provider for China and for global Chinese communities, today jointly announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement (the "Agreement") to merge E-House's real estate information and consulting services and SINA's online real estate business (the "Transaction").
E-House's real estate information and consulting services business is operated by CRIC Holdings Limited ("CRIC"), a wholly- owned subsidiary of E-House. Under the Agreement, SINA will inject all of its online real estate business into its majority-owned subsidiary China Online Housing Technology Corporation ("China Online Housing"). (For the nine months ended December 31, 2008, unaudited advertising revenues of SINA's online real estate business, including advertising revenues from China Online Housing, were approximately $31 million.) CRIC will issue its own ordinary shares to SINA in exchange for SINA's equity interest in China Online Housing, giving SINA 39% equity interest in CRIC (without giving effect to any initial public offering shares). The closing of the Transaction is conditional upon the closing of a proposed initial public offering of CRIC and listing of CRIC's American depositary shares representing its ordinary shares on a major stock exchange in the U.S. (the "Proposed IPO") and certain other customary closing conditions. Immediately upon the closing of the Transaction and the Proposed IPO, E-House will be the majority shareholder of CRIC and SINA will be the second largest shareholder of CRIC. The Transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both E-House and SINA.
"We are thrilled by the opportunity to deepen our business partnership with SINA," said Mr. Xin Zhou, E-House's chairman and chief executive officer. "SINA's real estate Internet platform is an ideal complement to our real estate information and consulting services. We expect that CRIC's merger with SINA's online real estate business will create substantial synergies between the two businesses by building a powerful real estate information and Internet platform that provides integrated content and services to real estate developers, suppliers, brokers and other service professionals as well as millions of individual customers."
Mr. Charles Chao, SINA's president and chief executive officer, commented, "We are excited about this unique opportunity to further expand our business in the real estate vertical. By combining SINA's real estate business with CRIC's real estate information and consulting services, we are creating a leading real estate information services platform both online and offline with multiple revenue streams. This transaction marks a significant step in our strategy to expand the business opportunities of our top verticals by teaming up with industry leaders and leveraging our strong brand recognition and online media platform as well as our large user base."
E-House today also announced that it plans to submit on a confidential basis a draft registration statement of CRIC to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") for the Proposed IPO. The Proposed IPO is expected to commence as capital markets conditions permit and is subject to CRIC filing with the SEC a registration statement on Form F-1 in compliance with the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act"), and the SEC declaring such registration statement effective. The number of American depositary shares proposed to be offered and sold and the dollar amount proposed to be raised in the Proposed IPO have not yet been determined. This announcement is being made pursuant to and in accordance with Rule 135 under the Securities Act.
