Chinese social networking service developer Oak Pacific has acquired 23.7% of the floating shares of Nasdaq-listed travel website eLong.com for USD18.5 million and the two sides are considering business cooperation, says CEO of Oak Pacific Joseph Chen.

According to the documents that eLong handed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Oak Pacific has bought 5.28 million shares of eLong, accounting for 23.7% of the total floating shares of the online travel agency. Upon the completion of the transaction, the two companies will discuss strategic cooperation and the possibility for corporate merger might be available.

However, Chen says that Oak Pacific will not use this purchase for a backdoor listing. He says after the purchase is completed, Oak Pacific will immediately announce a series of cooperative programs with eLong, which may include a user transfer from Oak Pacific to eLong to further dig the commercial value of community users.

Founded in 2003, Oak Pacific is a leading Chinese SNS website provider that owns such popular websites as Xiaonei.com, Kaixin.com and Mop.com. In April 2008, it gained over USD300 million capital injection from the Japan-based Softbank.