BEIJING, Aug. 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- 58 Home, China's largest online marketplace serving local merchants and consumers, today announced that its freight business unit, 58 Suyun, entered into a merger with GOGOVAN, the leading intra-city logistics and freight online platform in Southeast Asia. The merger will create Asia's largest online platform in the intra-city logistics and freight business. After the merger, the combined company will continue to be branded as 58 Suyun in China and GOGOVAN outside of China. 58 Home will hold the majority stake of the combined company. China Renaissance acted as the exclusive financial advisor to both 58 Home and GOGOVAN in the transaction.
Xiaohua Chen, the Founder and CEO of 58 Home, will serve as Chairman of the combined company. Steven Lam, the Founder and CEO of GOGOVAN, will serve as the CEO of the combined company. The combined company will be the only online platform in Asia that be able to provide full on-demand logistics and freight services to both corporate and individual customers. The combined company will also serve as the market leader in multiple geographic markets including mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea and India.
58 Home launched 58 Suyun in September 2014 to focus on intra-city logistics and freight business. 58 Suyun has developed a close-loop of O2O services that enables order placement based on a customer's location, distributing orders to truck drivers, driver pick-up within 10 minutes, actual delivery, online payment and review by customers. Currently, 58 Suyun's business has covered more than 100 cities in mainland China with over one million registered drivers, representing its dominating market position in the industry.
Founded in July 2013, GOGOVAN is a well-known Hong Kong headquartered start-up. The company expanded its operations to Taiwan and Singapore in 2014 and entered into mainland China and South Korea in 2015. To date, GOGOVAN has become Asia's leading online logistics and freight platform with more than 180,000 registered drivers in 14 cities across six Asian countries or districts and nearly 30 million orders cumulatively. It also owns a large number of enterprise clients.
Xiaohua Chen, CEO of 58 Home, commented, "We are very impressed by GOGOVAN's great achievements and impacts as a start-up in the Southeast Asian market, as well as the management team's entrepreneurial spirit and their ability to innovate and execute. The combined company will have the ability to expand in both mainland China and Southeast Asia as well as provide more tailored and well-rounded services to customers. The merger also lays the foundation for the combined company to become the global leader in intra-city freight services."
Steven Lam, founder and CEO of GOGOVAN, said, "We are delighted to form our strategic partnership with 58 Suyun. I'm grateful for the trust and support from Mr. Chen Xiaohua and 58 Home, and I look forward to leading the combined company to new growth and development. The combined company will leverage 58 Suyun's existing premium brand, large users base and online traffic for a quick expansion to 300 cities in mainland China. Meanwhile, by leveraging GOGOVAN's logistics expertise and business development experience in Southeast Asia, the combined company will further accelerate its growth in other Asia markets. Last but not the least, we aim to continue offering high-quality, efficient and reliable logistics services for enterprise clients."
Jeremy Choy, Managing Director and Head of M&A at China Renaissance, added, "The merger marks the largest M&A transaction between a mainland China start-up and a Hong Kong start-up. It also changes the landscape of the trillion-dollar intra-city logistics market by creating the Asian market leader. We are thankful to both 58 Home and GOGOVAN's trust in us and excited to be able to provide our advice that are in the best interest of the companies and shareholders for both sides. We are also delighted to help facilitate the industry development and upgrade by participating in this merger."
