FAST NEWS: Weimob boosts stake in movie producer

The latest: E-commerce services provider Weimob Inc. (2013.HK) announced on Wednesday that it agreed to acquire an additional 24.4% of Shanghai Banfan Information Technology, with a transaction value of 31 million yuan (4.3 million), boosting its stake to 53.5%.

Looking up: Banfan is engaged in the business of film and television production and distribution, as well as the operation of content platforms, and could help to enhance Weimob’s content distribution capability and strengthen its capabilities in the short video industry.

Take Note: Weimob bought its additional stake in Banfan using an equity transfer worth 6 million yuan, and also supplied another 25 million yuan in new capital to the company.

Digging Deeper: Founded in 2013, Weimob sells customer relationship management (CRM) software to e-commerce merchants mostly on WeChat, the popular social networking platform owned by Tencent. The company’s revenue grew quickly after it added digital marketing tools in 2016, but it began to stagnate around 2021. In August last year, Weimob announced that it was spinning off the two businesses into separate divisions. In January it announced it was aiming to list its digital marketing business at a valuation of 3.6 billion yuan or more, only to cancel the plan five days later.

Market Reaction: Weimob’s shares fell on Thursday and closed down 1.5% at HK$1.98 by the midday break, near the lower end of their 52-week range.

Translation by A. Au

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