Leon Li, the founder of Huobi Group, is conversing with several investors about selling the crypto exchange’s majority stake at a value of up to $3B, potentially moving toward the biggest takeover in the industry since the beginning of a worldwide crypto rout of nearly $2 trillion.
Leon Li Wishes to Sell his Huobi Stake at a Value of $3B
The China-based crypto tycoon has conducted discussions with many financiers, wishing to sell almost 60% proportion of the firm that was founded by it nearly a decade back, as per the people acquainted with the issue. Justin Sun, the founder of Tron, as well as FTX of Sam Bankman-Fried (a crypto billionaire), come under the category of those having had an opening conversation with Huobi regarding a share transaction. The people requested to remain anonymous while discussing this private information.
Present supporters taking into account Sequoia China and ZhenFund received information regarding the decision of Li during a shareholders meeting in July, as the people mentioned. A contract could be accomplished as shortly as the denouement of the present month, as stated by a person. Li is looking for a valuation from $2B and $3B, signifying that a sale could bring more than $1B, the people revealed.
Huobi Co-Founder In-Talks with Foreign Institutions
A spokesperson from Huobi confirmed that the co-founder is getting involved with many international organizations regarding the stake sale, without disclosing the particulars. In his words, Li expects that there will be more resources and power in the possession of the next shareholders and that a value would be given by them to the Huobi brand and they will invest additional energy and capital to enhance the venue’s growth, as noted by the spokesperson in his emailed statement.
Huobi, once known as the most vigorous venue for Bitcoin trading across the globe, has withdrawn from China – which once comprised its largest source for revenue and consumer base – in the previous years. The exchange of Li stopped offering services for clients in China following the declaration by Beijing in the recent year that the crypto-transfers were prohibited.
Since then, the stock market has witnessed a considerable expansion into Brazil, Turkey, and other overseas markets, however, is confronting larger competitors such as FTX and Binance. At the moment, it is ambiguous if a takeover could include Huobi Technology Holdings Ltd. (a Hong Kong-listed affiliate responsible for managing the digital assets to facilitate the professional investors and the securities regulator of Hong Kong has provided a license to it.)
The shares of Huobi Technology reversed profits and losses by 5.7% following the 1st report of Bloomberg. The HT token of Huobi rushed by 25% following the report, as brought to the front by the CoinGecko data. A few of the richest financiers in the market are benefitting from the market meltdown to raise bargain investments. In this respect, FTX has allocated $1B to a spending spree, offering support to insolvent companies taking into account BlockFi Inc. and Voyager Digital LLC.
