Chinese Opera

16 September 2016 By Pete Sweeney Follow @petesweeneypro

Software tycoon Zhou Yahui, owner of most of gay dating app Grindr, is transferring $1.1 bln worth of company stock to his ex-wife. That may traumatize the process of making additions to the company, perhaps including Zhou’s ongoing effort to buy parts of Opera Software.

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Zhou Yahui is transferring 278 million shares in his Beijing Kunlun Tech and one of its shareholding companies, worth around $1.1 billion, to his former wife Li Qiong. With her existing small stake, she will be left with approximately a 26.4 percent stake in the company. The transferred shares are locked up until 2018.

The share transfer announcement does not specify it is part of a divorce settlement, but it follows a civil divorce in Beijing.

Kunlun is part of a consortium that tried to buy Norwegian browser firm Opera Software for $1.2 billion earlier this year. After the failure of that attempt, the group members are considering the acquisition of certain Opera assets for $600 million.

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