Huobi Global Sold

Crypto exchange Huobi Global founder Leon Li sold his 60% share in the company to About Capital Management HK.

Earlier we wrote that Huobi’s founder might consider selling a majority stake in the crypto exchange company.

Two months later, on October 8, 2022, the controlling shareholder of Huobi Global (its founder Leon Li), reached an agreement with About Capital Management to sell his entire share (60%) in Huobi Global. As mentioned in the announcement, “the transaction only involves the change of controlling shareholder and has no impact on Huobi’s core operation and business management teams”. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

About Capital Management is an Asia Pacific-focused asset management company based in Hong Kong. **The management team will use their expertise to grow the company and drive it forward. As the company says on its website: “To give you peace of mind - we are here to preserve and grow your wealth”.

Commenting on the Huobi Global acquisition, Ted Chen, CEO of About Capital, said

"We are very pleased to complete the transaction. Huobi Global offers the best of breed virtual asset investment services to millions of international users. We believe the virtual asset industry is still in its early stage and there is tremendous upside for long term growth. We are confident that the holistic approach to rebuild Huobi Global as the premier international virtual asset exchange would solidify both the recognition and trust of Huobi's international users."

About Capital plans to introduce a set of initiatives to enhance Huobi’s competitiveness and positioning on the market. One of the initiative is “a global strategic advisory board led by leading industry figures”. The following day after the deal, Huobi introduced the members of the board:

.@HuobiGlobal has announced its global advisory board composed of industry leaders across blockchain and traditional organizations. The initial list of Huobi Global advisors is as follows: Ted Chen, @DujunX , Wang Yang, @justinsuntron, @LeahWald.https://t.co/RudgABiC7F
— Huobi (@HuobiGlobal) October 9, 2022

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By the way, when Huobi sale was discussed for the first time Justin Sun was mentioned among potential investors. He declined the possibility of being involved in this matter, but a day later after concluding the deal he turned out to be one of the members of the Global Advisory Board . Some sources even state that Justin Sun is actually the core investor of this acquisition and it is quite possible in our opinion. Earlier Justin Sun bought BitTorrent, so it seems that he is into acquiring already well established companies instead of developing new ones.

Leon Li said: “We believe the successful acquisition by About Capital vehicle will contribute to Huobi's global expansion”. Let’s see if that turns out to be true.

UPD 12 Nov 2022:

Eventually Justin Sun confessed that he was the one behind the acquisition of Huobi. He published a tweet saying that “after all, it [Huobi] has cost over a billion dollars and needs to be used to continue to make money”. Funny that this tweet was written in Chinese while pretty much all the rest is written in English…