Opera Software shareholders accept Chinese bid
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OSLO - Shareholders in the Norwegian company Opera Software have accepted a bid from a Chinese consortium valuing the group at 10.5 billion kroner ($1.2 billion, 1.1 billion euros), Opera announced on Wednesday.
The consortium, led by the Golden Brick Silk Road investment fund, still needs the approval of US and Chinese regulatory authorities before it can complete the acquisition of the world's fifth most-used web browser.
At 1430 GMT on Tuesday, the offer had been accepted by shareholders representing 90.6 per cent of ordinary shares and 90.9 per cent of voting rights, Opera said in a statement.
The consortium, which also includes the fund Yonglian and the companies Beijing Kunlun Tech and Qihoo 360, had to extend the offer in mid-April after failing to obtain the 90 per cent required.
Opera claims to have 60 million users on desktops and almost 120 million users each month on Android devices, the Google operating system used on 80 per cent of smartphones sold worldwide.
It is the world's fifth-biggest browser in terms of users, far behind Chrome (Google), Internet Explorer/Edge (Microsoft), Firefox (Mozilla), and Safari (Apple).
- AFP
