AAA GCV Award: M&A of the Year – Ganji

GCV Award: M&A of the Year – Ganji

Writing at the time of the deal last spring, NGP’s Anupam Rastogi said: “NGP was an early investor in Ganji, and co-led a €18m [$20m] series A investment in 2010. As reported in the media, the deal values Ganji at over $3bn. This is a tremendous validation of Ganji’s founder Mark Yang and his talented team, and the magnitude of the local marketplace opportunity.”

Rastogi added: “NGP played a leading role on the board during its formative development helping the company transition to a mobile internet business.”

Aside from describing the 58.com’s acquisition of Ganji as NGP’s most valuable exit since being formed in 2005, the business did not immediately disclose how much it would make from the deal. However, the interim report for the second quarter of 2015 stated that the Ganji sale valued Nokia’s total indirect holdings in the company at €200m ($230m), with the transaction leading to a gain for Nokia of around €110m in the relevant period.

The report added: “The final amount and timing of additional income or expense will depend on the value and date at which the venture funds liquidate the portion of the consideration that was received in shares.”

58.com took a 43.2% share in Ganji in return for $412m in cash plus 34 million of its own shares. The acquisition was funded in part by a $400m investment in 58.com by internet portal Tencent, which now owns just over 25% of 58.com.

Michael Jinbo Yao, 58.com’s chairman and CEO, said: “We are pleased to make this large-scale strategic investment in Ganji.com to jointly realise major cost, revenue and strategic business synergies.

“This transaction is part of our larger plan to execute our vision of integrating our respective businesses and creating a larger and more effective local services internet platform to help consumers around China find the services that they need in their local area.”

Mark Haoyong Yang, chairman and CEO of Ganji, added: “I look forward to taking advantage of the great chemistry between Ganji and 58.com, and leveraging our respective resources and advantages. We have seen and continue to see the mobile internet enabling a transformative opportunity in the classified industry.”

Rastogi at NGP said that the insights gained from working with Ganji were enabling his firm to create productive new partnerships with businesses elsewhere. “A key highlight of NGP’s global thematic investing approach is the ability to leverage insights and learnings across regions,” he said. “Based on insights from the Ganji investment in China, NGP led an early investment in Quikr, India’s leading local marketplace, in 2011.

“While India and China are very different markets, NGP and its portfolio companies have found it useful to cross-leverage insights across these two regions.””

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