(Reuters) -DouYu International Holdings Ltd said on Monday it had terminated its $5.3 billion deal with Huya Inc, two days after China’s market regulator blocked Tencent Holding Ltd’s plans to merge the country’s top two videogame streaming sites.
China’s State Administration of Market Regulation (SAMR) on Saturday said it would block the deal on antitrust grounds, confirming an earlier Reuters report.
Tencent first announced plans to merge Huya and DouYu last year in a tie-up designed to streamline its stakes in the firms, which were estimated by data firm MobTech to have an 80% share in a market worth more than $3 billion.
Tencent is Huya’s biggest shareholder with a 36.9% stake and also owns over a third of DouYu, with both firms listed in the United States, and worth a combined $5.3 billion in market value.
U.S.-listed shares of DouYu were down 2% premarket, while those of Huya were down ~1%.
The deal termination also comes amid an ongoing government crackdown on Chinese tech companies.
(Reporting by Tiyashi Datta in Bengaluru; Editing by Ramakrishnan M.)
