Online Estate Service SouFun Teams Up with Premier Chinese Real Estate Firms for Offline Expansion

SouFun Holdings Limited (NYSE: SFUN), a real estate Internet portal in China, recently announced that it has entered into strategic cooperation agreements with Shenzhen World Union Properties Consultancy (SZ: 002285) and Hopefluent Group (HK: 00733), two leading real estate agencies in China.

According to the agreements, SouFun will subscribe for new shares of the two companies via private placement and purchase shares from their existing shareholders for a 10% and a 17% shares in World Union and Hopfluent with US$120 million and US$ 91 million, respectively. SouFun will become the second largest shareholder of the two partners, respectively.

The online estate service will cooperate with the two partners across their business lines, including advertising, e-commerce, listing service, new home agency and consultancy. SouFun also planned to cooperate with the two companies to explore internet and real estate financing businesses. SouFun just launched a third-party financing business last year.

It is reported that SouFun is planning to change its realm name to Fang.com and its name to Fangtianxia.

Vincent Mo, SouFun’s executive chairman, said “As the leading online platform in China’s huge real estate market, SouFun has been looking for the leading off-line players to work together for the industrial upgrade of China’s expanding new home and real estate market.

Collaborating with World Union and Hopefluent will help SouFun, which provides online information regarding real estate development in China, to be more conversant with real estate transactions. World Union and Hopefluent, on the other hand will benefit from enhanced operations as these would integrate their operations with an online platform.