Donews Buys Chinese Facebook Replica Renren for USD60 Million
Zhang Yushuo
DATE:  Nov 15 2018
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
Donews Buys Chinese Facebook Replica Renren for USD60 Million Donews Buys Chinese Facebook Replica Renren for USD60 Million

(Yicai Global) Nov. 14 -- Donews, a Chinese website focused on information technology, has penned a USD60 million deal to acquire social media platform Renren, the Chinese equivalent to Facebook.

The transaction will be settled one third in cash and two thirds in Donews shares, Renren's Chief Executive Chen Yizhou said in a statement today. He had been looking for a successor for a quarter of a year, he added, saying he has high hopes for Renren under its new owner.

Chen published an article titled Renren's Future Is Yours to Decide! three months ago, saying he felt he was not an ideal fit for the company's younger target market.

Donews stories aim to attract young readers by focusing on gaming, technology and hardware, and it runs online communities for titles such as World of Warcraft as well as general anime, cartoon and gaming forums. It has used its assets to form a media matrix and will integrate Renren's social features into the network to better reach its users.

Renren, previously Xiaonei, was formed in 2005 and was one of China's first real-name social media networks. It was racking up around 31 million monthly logins as of the end of March.

Editor: James Boynton

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Keywords:   Social Media,Renren,M&A