China’s antitrust watchdog approved Tencent Holdings’ request to buy out US-listed search engine Sogou. The grant came days after the SAMR blocked the merger of Huya and Douyu International Holdings – the country’s two most significant video game live-streaming platforms. As Tencent is the controlling shareholder of Huya and owns more than a third of Douyu, the SAMR considered that the merger could have strengthened the company’s dominant position in the game streaming market.
The deal between Tencent and Sogou was initially announced in September 2020, when the first was looking to buy the 60% of the latter that it did not already own, making it the latest Chinese company to leave the US markets amid tensions between the countries. Tencent has been Sogou’s largest shareholder since 2013. At that time, it merged the search engine with its own Soso search.
After the news hit the wires, Tencent stock price climbed 3.9%.
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Sources: Bloomberg.com, scmp.com