Tencent issues preliminary non-binding acquisition offer to Sogou (full text attached)

Tencent issues preliminary non-binding acquisition offer to Sogou (full text attached) with transaction price of US$9 per share

On the evening of July 27, Sogou stated that Tencent had made a preliminary non-binding acquisition offer to the company. A person familiar with the matter confirmed this and said the transaction price was $9 per share.

Sogou said Tencent has made a preliminary non-binding acquisition offer to the company. Boosted by the news, Sogou's pre-market share price rose by more than 40%. Tencent intends to acquire the remaining shares of the company at a price of US$9 per ADS. A special committee of the board of directors will consider the proposal. After the U.S. stock market opened, Sogou opened up by about 45%.

Sogou was first spun off from Sohu Inc. in 2004, with its main businesses being search engines, browsers and input methods.

On November 9, 2017, Sogou was listed on the New York Stock Exchange with an issue price of US$13. It closed at US$13.5 on the first trading day, up 3.85%, with a market value of US$5.29 billion.
In May 2020, Sogou released its unaudited financial report for the first quarter of 2020. Data shows that Sogou's revenue in the first quarter was 1.79 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5%.

As of press time, Sogou’s market value is approximately US$3.223 billion

Public information shows that in September 2013, Tencent injected US$448 million into Sogou and merged its Tencent Soso business and other related assets into Sogou. After the transaction was completed, Tencent immediately acquired 36.5% of Sogou's diluted shares.

At present, Tencent has not commented on the acquisition.