Shanda Group: История китайского игрового гиганта

Chinese video game developer

Shanda Group is a privately owned multinational investment firm. With offices in Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, New York and Redwood City, the firm invests in public markets, real estate and venture capital, focusing on companies in the fields of healthcare, financial services, media, and technology. The company was established in December 1999 as Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited, an online gaming company known for publishing and operating games such as The World of Legend and its listing on the NASDAQ that year under ticker SNDA was the largest IPO for a Chinese internet company in the United States. Shanda Interactive later diversified and its gaming unit spun off in 2009, raising $1.04 billion in an IPO (GAME). Shanda Group was taken private in 2012 by its founders, and by 2017 it had $8 billion in net assets under management. With headquarters in Shanghai, and USD $60,000 in startup capital, Because home internet access in China was limited at the time, Shanda Interactive began constructing a network of around 200,000 internet cafes.

Legend of Mir 2 and World of Legend accounted for 87.5 percent of Shanda Interactive's revenue in the first quarter of 2004. To reduce dependence on those two games, Shanda released the self developed game The Sign in February 2004, and by April was also working on the in house titles Age and Magical Land. Shanda Interactive listed on the NASDAQ in May 2004, raising $152 million with the initial public offering (IPO) becoming Sina's largest shareholder. Operating as an online advertising firm, Sina. com was the most popular internet portal in China at the time. Founder Chen Tianqiao was estimated to have a net worth of $1.45 billion, with the press dubbing him the "Chinese Bill Gates." With the intent of extending the life of its older MMORPGs, in December 2005, Shanda announced that its three major games Revenue rebounded after about nine months, and in 2006, Shanda Interactive's internet games sales increased 44 percent from the year prior. Shanda Interactive announced in February 2007 that the free to play model was proving lucrative, and shares increased 10 percent in value that day. By November 2006, Shanda was expanding from online games into an "entertainment empire on the Internet, mobile phones and TVs," according to China Daily. Shanda sold 4 million shares of Sina Corp for $129 million in February 2007. In June 2007, Shanda Interactive signed licensing and distribution agreements to expand World of Legend, Magical Land and Crazy Kart into Vietnam, Hong Kong and Macao. In November 2007, Shanda Interactive purchased a 30 percent stake in NCsoft China, giving Shanda the rights to distribute the popular game Aion in China.

Shanda Games Limited had become a business unit of Shanda Interactive by early 2008, with former Sina executive editor Xiaoqiang Hou as CEO. Shanda Literature began offering literature and other publications through websites, offline publication and phones. The unit purchased Qidian, Hongxiu, and jjwxc. com, and vivibear, both accused of plagiarism. In 2010, Shanda Literature sued the search engine Baidu. com for providing links to pirated versions of Shanda Literature's copyrighted material.

In 2008, Shanda Interactive paid $80 million to acquire Mochi Media, an online game distributor in the United States. Shanda was the "largest online entertainment provider in China" by early 2009. That year Shanda Interactive recorded operating revenues of $232.3 million, 2% higher than the prior year. By the fall of 2011, Shanda Interactive offered MMORPGs, casual games, film, music, and literature on an "integrated service platform." With most of its audiences in China, the company had subsidiaries and affiliates such as Ku6 Media. Shanda Literature was renamed Cloudary in 2011, Chrissy Luo, Tianqiao Chen, and Danian Chen took Shanda Interactive private in a deal that valued the company at $2.3 billion. According to the New York Times, it was "one of the biggest such deals involving a Chinese company." After expanding Shanda with a series of rapid acquisitions, In 2016, Shanda Group acquired stakes in LendingClub, Legg Mason, and Sotheby's. After acquiring a 9.9 percent stake in Baltimore's Legg Mason that April, making it the company's single biggest investor. Shanda Group sold its 2 percent stake in Sotheby's in August 2016. By December 2016 it had also purchased a 13.8 percent stake in Community Health Systems. and advised customizing Legg Mason's investment products for clients in China. At the start of 2017, Shanda Group had $8 billion in net assets under management. deep technology investment funds. With real estate in China and the United States, it is one of the larger owners of timberland in North America, with around 700,000 meters. Also in 2018, Shanda Group began focusing on neuroscience and brain related companies, and had already invested in around "100 advanced technology ventures integrating virtual reality technology and neuroscience."