58.com, a website similar to Craigslist, has made several acquisitions and mergers recently, including its competitor Ganji.com.
58.com announced the acquisition of ChinaHR.com, an online job hunting platform, on May 8 and released its financial development strategy the same day. According to the strategy, the company will launch a financial product called "58 piggy bank".
In the 18 months after becoming a listed company, 58.com spent nearly $1.7 billion in investing and acquiring 14 corporations in a variety of industries. Such frequent acquisitions make experts curious about the corporations' future development path.
58.com continued its acquisitions in 2015. In April, the company announced that it would spend $412.2 million on 34 million general equity (43.2 percent of the total equity) of Ganji.com. On May 8, the corporation acquired ChinaHR.com from Irish Saon Group.
Edaijia, a mobile application providing designated driver services, announced to receive $100 million in d round investment. 58.com invested $20 million in Edaijia last October and led the industry ever since.
Famous as a categorized information website, 58.com has expanded its business area. The corporation has six business groups, including real estate, jobs and used cars.
Since the end of October of 2013, 58.com has acquired a series of websites and mobile applications in vehicle and household maintenance related areas such as used car trading, car rental, car washing, driver license training, moving, house cleaning, and furniture and pipeline repairing..
According to CEO Yao Jingbo, the corporation has spent $1.67 billion in investment and acquisitions mainly in automobile and real estate industry.
"Today we are ready and is able to do a fashionable business – internet finance," said Yao. The company has many business groups in need of internet finance, which is the biggest advantage of 58.com.
"58 Piggy Bank" is a product of 58.com and many banks, security companies, foundations, micro loans, and peer to peer (P2P) third party institutions. The product is able to provide a financial platform with high security level. Its first financial products will bring nine percent annual returns.
The financial business group has many products under testing, including loans and insurance. The corporation is planning to develop loans for house rental, down payment, and driver license training.
58.com will not be satisfied with its existing business area. "In the future, the corporation will be a comprehensive online platform," said He Song, general manger of financial business department of 58.com.
Yao said merging with Ganji.com is a major step in the development of the corporation. "After the merge, both sides were able to accomplish more and have higher chances to succeed," said Yao.
In contrast, some experts do not agree with the development of 58.com. Xu Shangfeng, an Internet researcher said that the acquisitions did not bring new products or technology. Therefore, are not helpful to the future development of the corporation.
According to Xu, the purpose of the merge between 58.com and Ganji.com is merely cost control and profits, but not an insight for future development.
