Australian telecoms giant Telstra said on Thursday it had paid $254-million for a majority stake in Chinese real-estate and home furnishing website SouFun Holdings.
Telstra chairperson Sol Trujillo said the site was a market leader in China and would be managed by Sensis, which runs Telstra’s online directories such as the yellow and white pages.
Trujillo said SouFun would give Sensis high growth opportunities in a rapidly expanding Chinese market.
“SouFun provides an attractive entry point into China, one of the world’s fastest growing economies, allowing Sensis to leverage core capabilities into a larger, faster growing and less mature market than Australia, with high-performing, internationally-experienced local management,” he said in a statement.
Telstra chief financial officer John Stanhope said SouFun would be cash-flow positive “from day one” and was expected contribute net revenue of $52-million in the 2007 financial year.
Sensis chief executive Bruce Akhurst said Sensis’ growth strategy was to expand into new geographic markets through partnerships or acquisitions.
“By expanding our business globally we are able to take our extensive experience offshore and become a leading Australian exporter of IP [Internet protocol technology], while consolidating world best practices and applying them to our existing business operations to stimulate growth,” he said.
SouFun founder and chief executive Vincent Mo will remain in his position and retain a significant shareholding in the website with the balance of the shares held by management and venture capital firm IDG.
The website attracts over 40-million users a month.
Part of Telstra’s 51% stake was bought from French group Trader Classified, which issued a statement confirming it had sold its interest in the website to the Australian company for about $100-million.
Telstra shares closed up one cent at $3,60. – AFP