China’s e-commerce leader Alibaba has announced acquiring a stake in Youku Tudou. The latter is the country’s leader in social video sharing and viewing and is similar to YouTube. The deal was valued $1.22 billion which was seen as a move to competitively hinder Tencent, Alibaba’s major rival, reported TechCrunch.
Youku would be receiving $30.50 per American Depository Receipt of the company from Alibaba and Yunfeng Capital, co-founded by Jack Ma. This would be a premium valued 23 percent higher than the last trading price of China’s YouTube equivalent. The price tag of the deal was shown in a statement issued by Youku. Both Alibaba and Yunfeng Capital would jointly own 18.5 percent in the video networking company. Meanwhile, Alibaba’s chief executive Jonathan Lu would join the board of directors at Youku Tudou.
Alibaba has been recently aggressive on its acquisitions. The company has spent $4 billion on acquisitions in the last six months and has purchased three companies. The e-commerce giant has been poised to go public and intends to raise more than $15 billion through an IPO.
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