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Shanda CEO Proposes To Acquire Public Shares At $41.35 Per ADS

Robin Wauters

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Robin Wauters is the European Editor of tech blog The Next Web and lead editor of Virtualization.com. He was a senior staff writer at TechCrunch until his departure in February 2012. Aside from his professional blogging activities, he’s an entrepreneur, event organizer, occasional board adviser and angel investor but most importantly an all-round startup champion. Wauters lives and works in... → Learn More

Monday, October 17th, 2011
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Shanda Interactive Entertainment (Shanda), a major interactive entertainment media company in China, this morning revealed that it has received a non-binding proposal from Tianqiao Chen – Chairman, CEO and President of Shanda – to purchase all outstanding ordinary shares not yet owned by himself, his wife Qianqian Luo (also a non-executive director of Shanda) and his brother, Shanda COO and Director Danian Chen.

As of the end of last month, the trio owned approximately 68.4 percent of the outstanding shares of the company. Chen proposes to acquire the remaining public shares for $41.35 per American Depositary Share (ADS) or $20.675 per ordinary share, in cash.

Shanda, which is listed on NASDAQ, has seen its share price tank in the past six months. On October 14, the price closed at $33.48 per ADS.

Per the buyout proposal letter, a transaction vehicle will be created specifically to facilitate the transaction, which is intended to be financed with debt. JP Morgan is said to be evaluating financing the transaction as financial advisor of the buyer group.

Shanda’s board this morning announced that it has formed a ‘special committee’ of independent directors to consider Chen’s proposal.

Shanda offers a broad array of online entertainment content – ranging from MMORPGs to casual games, literature, film, music, video and whatnot – on an integrated service platform to a large audience mostly based in China. Subsidiaries and affiliates include Shanda Games, Cloudary, Ku6 Media, and a bunch of other online community and business units.


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Company: Shanda Interactive Entertainment
Website: ir1.snda.com
IPO: SNDA

Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited (NasdaqGS: SNDA) is a leading interactive entertainment media company in China. Shanda offers a portfolio of diversified entertainment content including some of the most popular massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and advanced casual online games in China, as well as online chess and board games, e-sports game platform and a variety of cartoons, literature works and music. Shanda’s interactive entertainment platform attracts a large and loyal user base, of which more and more is...

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