Sina Corporation, an online media company and value-added information service provider for China and for global Chinese communities, announced today the completion of its acquisition of Crillion Corp., a leading SMS valued-added service provider to temporary job seekers in China.
An upfront consideration of US$8,691,056 in cash and 195,593 newly issued Sina ordinary shares has been paid with the remaining consideration to be paid on an earn-out basis over the next two years. The remaining earn-out payments will be paid out roughly on a 1.5 to 2 times 2004 and 2005 earnings basis respectively, provided that Crillion's pretax net income for 2004 and 2005 is over US$6.7 million and US$13.3 million, respectively. The total consideration has a cap of US$125 million, of which, 60% will be paid in cash and the remaining in Sina shares.
Based in Shenzhen, Crillion works with job centers around China to provide job referrals via wireless short messaging service to a large number of job seekers in China. Building upon this customer base, Crillion has created various popular SMS based mobile communities with members paying between US$0.70 and US$1.00 on a monthly basis. The acquisition adds two million paying subscribers to Sina's large existing user base and further solidifies Sina's leading position in China's mobile value-added service market.