500.com to sell shares to Tsinghua Unigroup and appoint new director

Monday 8th of June 2015

500.com, an online sports lottery service provider in China, announced that it has entered into a purchase agreement with Tsinghua Unigroup International Co., Ltd. for the sale of more than 63 million newly issued ordinary shares in the company.

Tsinghua Unigroup International will purchase 63,500,500 newly issued Class A ordinary shares of 500.com for approximately $123.8 million in cash.

The per share purchase price of $1.95 represents a 1.4 percent discount of the average closing trading price of the company's ordinary shares for the 30 trading days ended June 8, 2015.

The closing is expected to take place on or before June 30, 2015.

Upon closing, Tsinghua Unigroup will hold 15.2 percent of the company's issued and outstanding ordinary shares.

The company’s board has also agreed to appoint Weiguo Zhao, the chairman of Tsinghua Unigroup, as a director of 500. com.

"We want to welcome Tsinghua Unigroup as a shareholder to our company and to express our appreciation to Tsinghua Unigroup's confidence in our company. We believe the partnership between Unigroup and our company will be long term and mutually beneficial. The partnership will also bring Tsinghua University's strong technical and research capabilities to 500.com," said Zhengming Pan, the chief executive officer of 500.com.