Hillhouse, FountainVest agree $1b Zhaopin take-private

The consortium will pay $18.20 per American Depositary Share (ADS), according to a regulatory filing – a premium to the April 5 closing price of $17.19 and a slight increase from the $18 per-share price indicated earlier this year. In addition, shareholders will be entitled to a special dividend of $0.56-2.70 per ADS, with the final amount to be determined based on Zhaopin's performance.

The stock gained 3.2% following the announcement on April 6 to close $17.74. 

Seek, which currently holds a 61% stake in the company, will remain the majority shareholder following the acquisition. The Australian recruiting site built up a controlling interest in the company between 2006 and 2013, providing an exit for several VC investors. Seek did not sell any shares in Zhaopin’s 2014 IPO, in which the company raised $76 million.

Last year saw competing bids for Zhaopin from CDH Investments and Shanghai Goliath Investment Management, on the one hand, and Sequoia Capital on the other, backing a bid by management. The CDH and Sequoia bids valued the company at $17.50 and $17.75 per share, respectively.

Zhaopin was founded in 1994 and claims to be China's most popular career platform, with nearly 130 million registered users. As of June 2016 the company had 84 million resumes in its database, with 36.9 million jobs posted on the platform by 510,000 unique customers.

In its most recent annual report Zhaopin reported revenue of RMB1.5 billion ($224 million) for the year ended June 2016, up from RMB1.3 billion the year before. Over the same period profit grew from RMB1.2 billion to RMB1.4 billion.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• North America
• Media
• Technology
• Buyouts
• PIPEs
• China
• USA
• Fountainvest Partners
• Hillhouse Capital Management
• TMT