(Yicai Global) June 16 -- 58.Com, China’s largest online classifieds marketplace by monthly unique visitors, plans to delist from New York in an USD8.7 billion deal with a consortium of investors backed by Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic.

A consortium will pay USD56 per American depository share, 58.Com said in a statement before the market closed yesterday. That’s a 20 percent premium on its closing price on April 1, when the Beijing-based firm said it had received the delisting proposal. The deal is expected to wrap up by year’s end.

Its shares [NYSE:WUBA] closed almost 9.6 percent higher yesterday at USD54.58 in their biggest rise since April 2 to give it a USD8.2 billion market capitalization.

Founded in 2005, 58.Com’s revenue climbed 18.6 percent to USD2.23 billion last year from 2018, while net profit attributable to shareholders was USD1.19 billion, a fourfold gain. The performance stemmed in part from the sale of its shares in secondhand car dealer Chehaoduo, which landed it CNY6.14 billion (USD866 million).

The consortium of investors that will take 58.Com private also includes Ocean Link Partners and Jinbo Yao, its chairman and chief executive, and Internet Opportunity Fund, an entity Yao controls.

Editor: Ben Armour