Chinese Internet firm Oak Pacific Interactive is considering an initial public offering "at a suitable time" in Hong Kong or on the US Nasdaq exchange, its chief executive said on July 16. Oak Pacific, with sales of about 500 million yuan ($73.4 million) last year, aims for sales growth of about 30 percent annually in the long term, Chief Executive Joe Chen said.
Oak Pacific's entertainment portal, Mop.com, has entered a stable growth phase, and Xiaonei.com, a social networking site focused on college students and office workers, is expected to turn a profit at the end of this year, Chen told Reuters on the sidelines of the ChinaJoy online gaming conference.
"We're in no hurry to list at the moment, since overseas markets are so bad. We are IPO-ready but are under no huge pressure to do so and will wait for the right moment," Chen said. Beijing-based Oak Pacific, which was founded in 2002, does not have any immediate need to raise more capital, Chen added.
But the firm, which has fuelled its growth both organically and through acquisitions, is also on the lookout for targets to further boost Oak's asset growth. "We don't do small deals anymore," he said.
Oak Pacific bought Mop.com in 2004, and also acquired IT blogging Web site Donews.com and video-sharing network Uume.com in 2005. It bought Xiaonei - which bears a striking resemblance to Facebook - in 2006.
Oak's total registered user base is about 50 million, according to its Web site www.oakpacific.com. Social networks like MySpace and Facebook let users share images, music, videos and blogs. Analysts estimate that China's Web surfers spend a combined 2 billion hours a week online amid a rapidly growing online advertising market.
In April, Oak said several venture capital firms, including Japan's Softbank Corp, invested $430 million in Oak Pacific and now hold a combined 35 percent stake. Chinese social networking sites - the most well-known among them 51.com, Tudou.com and Rox.com.cn - have benefited from a wave of foreign venture capital that has poured into the world's largest Web market following Google Inc's purchase of YouTube.
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