Chinese firms offer $1.23 bn for Norway's Opera

A group of Chinese Internet firms, including Qihoo 360 and Beijing Kunlun Tech Co, has made a cash offer of NOK 10.5 billion (USD 1.23 billion) to buy Norway's mobile browser firm Opera Software.
Opera, which counts India as its largest market, has received a voluntary offer for all outstanding shares at NOK 71 per share, the company said in a statement.
The buyers include US-listed web search and security firm Qihoo 360, Beijing Kunlun Tech (a distributor of online and mobile games), Golden Brick Silk Road (Shenzhen) Equity Investment Fund II LLP and Yonglian (Yinchuan) Investment Co.
"The offer price represents a premium of approximately 56 per cent to the volume weighted average share price for the last 30 trading days," it said.

Opera Software VP Communications Karin Greve-Isdahl, in response to a query, said there are no plans to change the current teams at Opera as the deal has not been officially accepted or finalised.
"All work continues, and products will be updated and maintained as usual. We plan to continue operating Opera as a stand-alone company. The organisation will remain as it is today and Lars Boilesen will continue as CEO," she said.

Talking about the Indian market, she said: "India is home to the largest number of Opera users on mobile devices and will continue to be a strategic market for us".

"The Opera team in India consists primarily of sales and marketing teams. If the acquisition goes through this is a good news as we will have more resources to invest in growing our users. More people will be able to use Opera's products," she said.
It had started out with a PC browser that competed with mainstream web browsers like Internet Explorer, Chrome, Mozilla and Safari.
Since then, Opera has transformed itself into a mobile advertising service, from which it now derives much of its revenue.
Lars Boilesen, Chief Executive Officer of Opera, said: "There is strong strategic and industrial logic to the acquisition of Opera by the Consortium. We believe that the Consortium, with its breadth of expertise and strong market position in emerging markets, will be a strong owner of Opera".

The Consortium's ownership will strengthen Opera's position to serve our users and partners with even greater innovation, and to accelerate our plans of expansion and growth, Boilesen added.