On October 8, Huobi announced that the controlling shareholder company has transferred all the shares of HuobiGlobal held by the fund of About Capital Management, and the buyout fund of About Capital Management has become the largest shareholder and actual controller of HuobiGlobal.
However, a number of people familiar with the matter said that Justin Sun is actually the core investor of this M&A fund. Justin Sun himself was at the delivery site in Singapore on October 8. At present, Justin Sun is vigorously recruiting, and some departments of Huobi are also taking over (the original C prefix). The executives have successively withdrawn their authority and proposed to resign), and the purchase price is upwards of 1 billion US dollars.
Justin Sun responded to Wu that he “didn’t participate”. But then Justin Sun’s official social media announced that he has become a global advisor to Huobi. The advisors include Chen Yihua, founder of About Capital Management, Du Jun, Justin Sun, Vice President of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Wang Yang, and Valkyrle Leah Wald. Its meaning is self-evident.
Currently, Huobi Japan and Huobi Korea are coordinating cutting and selling. Li Lin will still be responsible for the completion of the liquidation of domestic user assets. Chen Yihua, a former member of About Capital Management, used to be a partner of Jinglin Assets, known as China’s No. 1 private equity firm, so it was misunderstood that Jinglin was the gold owner behind the acquisition of Huobi. But Wu said that he learned that Jinglin did not participate in the acquisition, and About Capital Management was more of a “bridge” for Justin Sun’s acquisition.
The reason for doing this, according to people familiar with the matter, is that Li Lin is more worried about its security factors (Justin Sun is not a “good buyer” in the eyes of the Chinese government), and Justin Sun is afraid of causing dissatisfaction with Binance, which has always supported it, especially with the currency. An’s current biggest competitor, FTX, is closely intertwined in this transaction.
On August 12, Bloomberg reported that Huobi Lilin was seeking to sell its majority stake in the exchange at an exchange valuation of $3 billion. FTX and Justin Sun have made initial contact with him. Shareholders such as ZhenFund and Sequoia China learned of Li Lin’s decision at the July shareholders meeting. Justin Sun tweeted to explain: “We are not currently involved in any matters related to Bloomberg’s reporting.” SBF said it has no plans to acquire Huobi. But it is rumored that FTX has invested to help Justin Sun. This has the potential to push Binance, which has been supporting Justin Sun, to the position of its competitor.
Justin Sun graduated from Peking University. He was selected as the first trainee of Jack Ma Lakeside University in 2015. He founded TRON in 2017, acquired the exchange Poloniex in 2019, and bought Buffett’s lunch in the same year. In 2021, Justin Sun became the representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization. But Justin Sun has been controversial because of his aggressive marketing methods and faced some government regulatory issues in the United States and China.
At TOKEN2049 not long ago, Justin Sun appeared in a party with former employees at the Huobi event site. In the first half of the year, Justin Sun and FTX executives often communicated about acquisitions together in Singapore.