Big Chinese Funding: Online Jobs Site Zhaopin.com Gets $110 Million Funding

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Rafat Ali

paidContent.org
Sunday, July 13, 2008; 1:07 PM

The days of huge Chinese fundings are not over yet, as online video and gaming sites and others in digital media keep getting stupendous amounts: Chinese online jobs site Zhaopin.com has received a big $110 million round of mezzanine funding. This is the largest ever investment in the online jobs sector in China in recent years. According to the company CEO Hao Liu, Zhaopin.com, this will be the company's final round of financing before a planned IPO in 2010.

The two lead investors participating in this round are both Australian companies: investment bank Macquarie Capital ($60 million out of the share), and Seek Limited, the Aussie recruitment firm ($45 million) which already held a25 percent stake prior to this funding. Seek now holds 42.9 percent of the Chinese company, while Macquarie Capital holds 29.1 percent. Interestingly, this news comes within days of Macquarie upping its stake in publicly-listed Seek to 5.5 percent.

AustralianIT: The latest purchases value Zhaopin?which translates as "help wanted"?at $206 million. Seek's original purchase?less than two years ago?of 25 per cent of Zhaopin for $US20 million valued it at $US80 million. Insiders say it may be two years before Zhaopin breaks even. For the 2006-07 year it lost $13 million. Zhaopin is rapidly catching China's largest job ads company, the Nasdaq-listed 51job.

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