HONG KONG (BLOOMBERG) - Huobi Group founder Leon Li is in talks with a clutch of investors to sell his majority stake in the crypto exchange at a valuation of as much as US$3 billion (S$4.1 billion) , in what could be the industry's largest takeover since a US$2 trillion global crypto rout began.
The Chinese crypto mogul has held discussions with a raft of financiers, seeking to sell a roughly 60 per cent slice of the company he founded almost a decade ago, according to people familiar with the matter.
Tron founder Justin Sun and crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX are among those who have had preliminary contact with Huobi about a share transfer, the people said, asking to remain anonymous discussing private information.
A deal could be completed as soon as the end of this month, one person said.
Mr Li is seeking a valuation of between US$2 billion to US$3 billion, meaning a sale could fetch upwards of US$1 billion, the people added.
A Huobi spokesman confirmed that Mr Li is engaging with several international institutions about the stake sale, but declined to offer specifics.
Once the most active Bitcoin trading platform on the globe, Huobi has in recent years retreated from China, once its biggest user base and revenue source.
Mr Li's exchange stopped providing services to Chinese users after Beijing declared crypto-transactions illegal last year.
The bourse has since accelerated an expansion into overseas markets, including Turkey and Brazil, but is fighting bigger rivals such as Binance and FTX.
It is unclear whether a buyout could involve Hong Kong-listed Huobi Technology Holdings, an affiliate that manages digital assets for professional investors and is licensed by Hong Kong's securities regulator.
Huobi Technology's shares reversed losses and gained as much as 5.7 per cent on Friday (Aug 12) after Bloomberg's initial report.
Huobi's HT token surged as much as 25 per cent after the report, according to CoinGecko data.
Huobi handled roughly US$1.12 billion of crypto transactions over the 24 hours to Aug 12, a little more than half of the trades hosted by Coinbase Global, according to data tracker CoinGecko.
The US exchange is valued at about US$19 billion, with a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.6.
Some of the industry's richest financiers are taking advantage of the market meltdown to scoop up bargain investments.
FTX, for its part, has committed about US$1 billion to a spending spree, providing a lifeline to insolvent firms including Voyager Digital and BlockFi.
Mr Sun, the controversial founder of the Tron blockchain network, has in the past acquired crypto outfits such as the Poloniex exchange and downloader BitTorrent.
Huobi was co-founded in 2013 by Mr Li, a former Oracle coder who quickly transformed the Beijing start-up into the world's most active Bitcoin exchange by charging zero transaction fees.
In 2017, Chinese regulators told local exchanges to stop hosting trades between fiat and digital money, the first of a stream of pronouncements that quelled a perceived threat to the country's financial stability.
Mr Li had at points ceded daily management to his lieutenants to deal with health issues.
His current chief executive officer is Mr Hua Zhu, a former Alibaba Group Holding technologist who joined Huobi in 2020.
In an interview for a 2020 Bloomberg News story, Mr Li said he had never received any official notice barring him from leaving China but he has chosen not to, unsure of the risks that would entail.