(Reuters) – China’s antitrust regulator unconditionally approved on Tuesday Tencent Holdings Ltd’s plan to take the country’s no.3 search engine Sogou Inc private in a $3.5 billion deal.
Reuters had reported the pending approval in April by State Administration of Market Regulation (SAMR).
The deal, announced in September, was for Tencent to buy the 60% of U.S.-listed Sogou that it didn’t already own, making it the latest Chinese company to exit U.S. markets amid tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
(Reporting by Pei Li in Hong Kong; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
