Sohu Com Inc. (SOHU)

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Sohu.com Inc : Sohu, Sogou and Tencent Jointly Announce Strategic Cooperation


09/16/2013 | 05:35am US/Eastern


BEIJING and SHENZHEN, Sept. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Sohu.com Inc. ("Sohu", NASDAQ: SOHU), Sogou Inc. ("Sogou") and Tencent Holdings Limited ("Tencent", SEHK: 00700) jointly announced today the establishment of a strategic cooperation that will reinforce and strengthen Sogou as a leader in the large and fast-growing China market for search and internet services, particularly for the mobile platform.

To implement this strategic cooperation, Tencent has invested a net amount of US$448 million in cash in Sogou and merged its Soso search related businesses and certain other assets with Sogou. Immediately after the transaction, Tencent holds 36.5% of Sogou's equity capital on a fully-diluted basis, which could further increase to approximately 40% in the near future. Sohu, together with its affiliates, remains the controlling shareholder of Sogou, which will continue to operate independently as a subsidiary of Sohu. Dr. Charles Zhang, Sohu's Chairman and CEO, will remain as Chairman of Sogou. Mr. Martin Lau, President of Tencent, and Mr. Mark Ren, Chief Operating Officer of Tencent, have joined Sogou's Board of Directors. Mr. Wang Xiaochuan will continue to lead Sogou as a director and CEO.

Tencent and Sogou have agreed to jointly develop, cross-promote and integrate their respective products and services, while collaborating in areas of search technology, user insights and data sharing. Sogou's leading products, including Sogou Pinyin and Sogou Search, will have direct access to the vast user base of Tencent's online and mobile social communities.

"This partnership will immediately expand Sogou's market presence and significantly elevate its position in the highly competitive PC search market, and even more so in the rapidly evolving mobile search market," stated Dr. Charles Zhang, Chairman and CEO of Sohu. "Sogou remains a key strategic asset of the Sohu Group, generating synergies with our other businesses and creating significant value for Sohu shareholders."

"We are very excited about our combination with Soso and strategic partnership with Tencent. By accessing Tencent's strong innovation capabilities and deeply integrating with Tencent's core platform, Sogou will herald a new era of relentless innovation in the mobile world," said Mr. Wang Xiaochuan, CEO of Sogou. "For example, the optimization of Sogou Pinyin for Tencent's mobile IM services will deliver superior user experience, while the interaction between search and social network will bring a multitude of opportunities."

"We believe Sogou is the ideal partner for Tencent to further develop search opportunities within China. This reinforces our "open, win-win" philosophy of working with leading teams to create innovative products for users, and build a healthy, diversified ecosystem for the industry," said Mr. Ma Huateng, Chairman and CEO of Tencent. "We have high regard for Sogou's strong innovation capabilities and successful execution track record. We are confident that Sogou, after combination with Soso, will deliver superior search experiences to users on our social, browser and content platforms, especially on the mobile front."

Sogou has successfully executed a "Pinyin-Browser-Search" strategy and launched numerous innovative products that have gained popularity among users, including the No.1 Chinese character Pinyin input method on PC as measured by user base and on mobile devices as measured by user penetration, according to iResearch; the No.3 PC browser and No.3 PC search engine in China by page views, according to CNZZ.

The transaction signed and closed simultaneously on September 16, 2013. Credit Suisse acted as financial advisor to Sohu. Goldman Sachs acted as financial advisor to Tencent.