Tencent Trims Stake in Shopee-owner Sea to 18.7%
Reuters, 1/05/22
Chinese gaming and social media company Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) has raised USD 3 bln by selling 14.5 mln shares at USD 208 each in Sea Limited, which owns e-commerce firm Shopee, according to a term sheet seen by Reuters today.
Tencent said late yesterday it had entered into a deal to reduce its stake in the Singapore-based gaming and e-commerce group to 18.7 percent from 21.3 percent. The company plans to retain the substantial majority of its stake in Sea for the long term.
Ahead of the announcement, Sea said Tencent had also agreed to cut its voting stake in the company to less than 10 percent.
Upon conversion, all outstanding Class B shares of Sea will be beneficially owned by Forrest Li, the founder, chairman and chief executive of Sea.
Separately, Sea is proposing to increase the voting power of each Class B ordinary share to 15 votes from three. It said that once the changes are made, the outstanding Class B ordinary shares beneficially owned by Li are expected to represent about 57 percent of the voting power, up from about 52 percent.
Editors' Note: To read Reuters's full article, please click here. To read Tencent's own press release announcing the stake reduction, please click here.
Keywords: Shopee divest Southeast Asia Sea Limited e-commerce Internet Tencent 0700.HK overseas