BEIJING, Sep. 28, 2009 (Xinhua News Agency) -- China's leading Internet portal Sina Corp. (NASDAQ:SINA) (SINA.NASDAQ) and Focus Media (FMCN.NASDAQ) both announced Monday that they will not prolong the deadline of their merger plan which was announced in December 2008.

The two sides had agreed that if they failed to complete the delivery before September 30, 2009, the merger would be terminated automatically.

According to Cao, although he still firmly believes the merger between Sina and Focus Media will generate great synergistic effect, negative impacts emerge as they cannot close the deal. As a result, they both agreed to give up the merger.

Nevertheless, Sina and Focus Media will continue their cooperation in business operation.

Cao said that the two sides will launch more strategic cooperation or even capital cooperation in future.