On the evening of July 27, Sogou announced that it had received a preliminary non-binding offer from Tencent to acquire the company, which will be wholly owned by Tencent, at a price of $9 per share. Prior to the transaction, Tencent was Sogou's single largest shareholder, holding 38.71% of the shares, more than Sohu's 33.44%. After the transaction, Sogou will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Tencent, and Sogou's ADSs (American Depository Receipts) will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and become a privately held company.
Affected by this, Sogou shares rose more than 48% overnight, to U.S. shares yesterday's closing market capitalization of $3.3 billion, market value overnight soared $1.08 billion, equivalent to about 7.5 billion yuan. The 42-year-old so far unmarried Wang Xiaochuan, worth more than 1 billion.
For this news, Sogou CEO Wang Xiaochuan generously responded in the circle of friends: "Thank you Tencent for the value of Sogou company as well as technical capabilities, product innovation capabilities of recognition. Next will be a serious discussion and measurement of related matters, so that Sogou can continue to create greater value for users."
Currently, Sogou has several major businesses such as search, input method and smart hardware, with search and related revenue being the main source of Sogou's revenue.
According to the data, Sogou's revenue in the first quarter of 2020 was 1.79 billion yuan, up 5% year-on-year. Of this, search and search-related revenue was 1.658 billion yuan ($238 million), accounting for more than 92% of the company's total revenue. Sogou's other revenue was 138 million yuan ($20 million) in the first quarter, up 6 percent year-over-year, mainly due to an increase in revenue from sales of smart hardware products.
Originally a subsidiary of Sohu, Wang led 12 part-time students at Tsinghua University to develop the Sogou search engine on Aug. 3, 2004, and later launched Sogou input method and Sogou browser.
In August 2010, the Sogou team led by Wang Xiaochuan was spun off from Sohu to form the independent Sogou Corporation, which was funded by Alibaba Group and strategic investors including Jack Ma personally.
In September 2013, Tencent took a strategic stake in Sogou with a 36.5% stake and $448 million and integrated its search and QQ input into Sogou's existing business .
On the evening of November 9, 2017, Sogou officially landed on the U.S. New York Stock Exchange. Hammering the bell, Sogou opened at $13.25, the market capitalization on the day exceeded $5 billion ($33.13 billion), holding 5.5% of Wang Xiaochuan's fortune reached $275 million ($1.811 billion).
Wang Xiaochuan, who vowed that "Sogou will not be listed, and he will not get married," is still unmarried and has dedicated his youth to Sogou. Many people say that Sogou owes Wang Xiaochuan a "wife", Wang Xiaochuan's answer is, "Sogou is my wife." Now bought by Tencent, a netizen comments: this, Wang Xiaochuan can put marriage on the agenda.