Newsbrief: Shareholders of Shanda Interactive Entertainment have approved a proposal by CEO Tianqiao Chen and his family to take over the Chinese MMO operator with a stock buyback deal worth $740 million.
With this agreement, Chen and members of his family (who are also executives at the company) will pay $41.35 per share for the 32 percent of shares they didn't already own, in order to make the company private,
according to The New York Times.
The proposal is a 24 percent premium of the Shanghai-based company's trading price when the family
made the offer in October, and values Shanda at around $2.3 billion. Chen has not explained his reasons for taking the company private.
The offer
was approved by the Board of Directors in a November meeting. Shareholder approval has now finalized the deal to bring Shanda private.
Shanda operates a number of MMOs in China, including localized versions of
AION, MapleStory, Ragnarok Online, and
Dungeons & Dragons Online.
