Chinese Portal Operator 58.com Denies Anjuke Redundancy Rumours

The Chinese online classifieds company 58.com has denied rumours that it is set to lay off over 20% of staff from its real estate division.

58.com owns and operates the Anjuke.com real estate portal through its real estate division Housing Business Group. According to reports from Chinese tech publication 36Kr, the company was set to lay off employees in the planning, operations, sales, design, products, and information technology departments of its real estate operations.

The speculation was denied by 58.com in comments made to news agency Zhongxin Jingwei with the classifieds firm stating that the rumour was "untrue".

The Chinese internet giant Tencent owns a 25% stake in 58.com which, in addition to Anjuke, operates the eponymous Chinese horizontal classifieds platform.

Source: Anjuke's prospectus

Anjuke had planned to float on the Hong Kong stock exchange. The company filed a prospectus in April 2021 with analysts predicting that the float could raise as much as $1 billion. Since October 2021 however, the company's filing has been marked "invalid" with no word forthcoming about the IPO's progress.

Chinese real estate portals have suffered greatly along with the country's real estate market in general over the last 18 months. Fang.com was kicked off the NYSE for failure to report and rival FangDD could yet be removed from the NASDAQ if it fails to meet minimum bid requirements.

Below: watch our interview with Chinese real estate portal expert Brett Hartley Wilson from March 2022.