A news which has been making headlines of most of the popular blogs today – Yahoo! and Google are eyeing for Indian Tech. giant – Rediff. And therefore, the stock prices of Rediff are rocketing!!
Here is the news –
Google, Yahoo may be eyeing Rediff
US-based Internet giants such as Google and Yahoo are eyeing Rediff.com India Ltd, which runs one of India’s most popular consumer Internet portals, for a possible acquisition. Investment banking sources told Hindustan Times that the management of Nasdaq-listed Rediff was in talks with the global companies for a negotiated takeover deal.
Leading US-based investment journal Barrons reported this month that Rediff is seeing speculation that it could be a takeover target. Rediff?s stock has witnessed a sharp jump in share price and volume on Nasdaq over the past week, when it also launched a Website to help consumers upload voice, video and photographic content for free.
The company’s stock moved up to $25.41 per share on July 13 from $17.94 on July 5 and. The trading volume has increased to more than a million shares from an average of 50,000 share a day. In fact, on July 12, Rediff shares closed at $26.46 and more than 3.3 million shares traded hands. The company has a current market capitalisation of $738 million.
The sources said if the deal comes through, the valuation may be close to a billion US dollars.
Rediff.com India, an online provider of news, information, communication, entertainment and shopping services, reported a net income of $2 million for the fourth quarter or $6.89 per ADS, compared with $0.53 million or $1.96 per ADS in the same quarter of the previous year.
The company’s revenues increased 66 per cent to $8.48 million from $5.11 million in the same quarter of last year. India Online revenues, which include advertising and fee-based revenues, jumped 76 per cent to $6.30 million from $3.57 million in the year-ago quarter, while US Publishing revenues were $2.18 million, up 42 per cent from $1.54 million a year earlier.