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PE firms to invest in SouFun

By Yu Hongyan (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-09-21 15:13

Private equity (PE) firms General Atlantic LLC and Apax Partners each agreed to invest in SouFun Holdings Ltd for $163 million to acquire a 19 percent stake in SouFun at its initial public offering (IPO) price, Caijing.com.cn reported Tuesday.

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SouFun is the largest property portal in China, and it went public on the New York Stock Exchange on Sept 17, 2010. Its shares closed at $75.50 in the debut, well above the IPO price of $42.50 set a day earlier.

The two firms would acquire their stakes from Australia's Telstra International Holdings Ltd, which bought 51 percent of SouFun for 254 million yuan in 2006.

Telstra said it planned to sell all the shares at the IPO price after SouFun's listing.

Jeff Leng, General Atlantic's managing director, will join SouFun's board of directors, General Atlantic said in a newsletter.

SouFun's website had almost 10 million unique visitors per week last year, when the company had net income of $52.7 million and revenue of $127 million, according to Bloomberg.

Its web content covers property information in 106 cities in China, with 63 offices across the country.