[photopress:sol_trujillo.jpg,full,alignright]Australia’s largest telecommunications company, Telstra, has paid $254 million to acquire 51 per cent of Beijing based SouFun Holdings. SouFun is China’s largest real estate and home furnishing website and it has stated it can maintain 100 per cent growth in the coming two years.
Established in 1999, SouFun gets 60 per cent of its total revenue from its online advertising business. It gets about 40 million visitors each month.
Sol Trujillo, chief executive officer of Telstra, who is not popular with the Australian government and harshly treated by the press which he openly disdains, said, ‘Integral to our growth strategy is the expansion into new geographic markets through the pursuit of partnerships or acquisitions that can deliver clear value to shareholders.’
Vincent Mo, SouFun founder and CEO, will retain 30.9 per cent of the company’s shares. IDG, a China-based venture capital firm, holds a 14.7 per cent stake and the remaining 3.4 per cent is held by the management.
Sol Trujillo said:
‘Telstra is reinventing and transforming itself into a media.com business, which simply means we are looking at providing services, whether they are communications, information or entertainment. And SouFun has an online business which is very similar with the business Sensis, a subsidiary of Telstra, has in Australia.
‘Meanwhile, China’s real estate sector has huge opportunities, not only for today but also in the future.’
SouFun intends first to expand in Hong Kong where Telstra already has a presence.
Source: China Daily
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