Chinese bike-sharing firm ofo denies acquisition reports

Ofo, a major bike-sharing company in China, denied media reports on Friday that claim the start-up is being acquired by Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing and Alibaba’s financial affiliate Ant Financial.

News site tech.ifeng.com on Friday reported that the two buyers had offered $1.4 billion, and the negotiation is close to an end. The news site quoted industry insiders as saying.

An ofo representative told the Global Times on Friday that the news report is untrue. He posted a screen shot on his WeChat account of a comment from ofo’s co-founder Yu Xin, saying “the news is too fake to make an official announcement.”

Both Didi Chuxing and Ant Financial offered no comments when contacted by the Global Times on Friday.

There have been other reports of ofo’s acquisition recently.

The tech.ifeng.com report said there have been negotiations on the acquisition but no final agreement had been reached between Didi and ofo. The stumbling block was the bike-sharing firm’s dissatisfaction with the price offered by Didi, the report said.

On Monday, online technology media outlet 36Kr said Didi was offering ofo $1.5 billion and was continuing to undercut the price. Ofo is very likely to be sold but Ant Financial is not one of the buyers, domestic news site jiemian.com reported Friday, citing different sources.

Ant Financial invested 2.06 billion yuan ($321 million) in Hellobike, the country’s third-largest bike-sharing service provider, thus becoming Hellobike’s largest shareholder, media reports said in June.

Ofo was reportedly dramatically scaling down its overseas operations, in a sign that some new Chinese internet-based businesses are having trouble replicating their domestic success abroad.