Opera software

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Opera Software ASA

logo
legal form ASA
ISIN NO0010040611
founding 1995
Seat Oslo , NorwayNorwayNorway 
management Lars Boilesen , daglig leather
Number of employees 1,671 (2015)
sales USD 615.9 million (2015)
Branch software
Website operasoftware.com

Logo until 2014

Opera Software is originally a Norwegian company and developer of the Opera web browser . It also operates the Opera Mediaworks mobile ad service . The headquarters of the company, which has been owned by a Chinese consortium since 2016 , is in Oslo .

history

Spin-off from Telenor

Opera Software was founded on August 30, 1995 by Geir Ivarsøy and Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner . Up until then, the two had worked in the research department of Telenor in Kjeller , where they had developed a preliminary stage of the browser for Telenor with the project name “Nettleser MultiTorg Opera”. However, when this project was reduced by Telenor for cost reasons and postponed indefinitely, the two managed to take over the rights to the program. They started their own company to develop it further. In 1997 Opera Software released the first official version of the Opera browser, 2.1 for Windows 95 .

initial public offering

Since March 11, 2004, the company's shares have been traded on the Oslo Stock Exchange. At that time the company had almost 150 employees. In addition to the office in Norway, it had two offices in Sweden . In 2005 offices in China , Japan and the USA were added. In the following year, additional offices were opened in India , Poland and South Korea . At the end of 2008 the company had 627 employees.

In the year of the IPO, the personal computer sector was only contributing a third of the company's sales, while the rest of the sales came from other Internet-enabled devices such as cell phones , game consoles and set-top boxes .

At the beginning of January 2010, Lars Boilesen took over the management of Opera Software ASA from co-founder Jon S. von Tetzchner . Von Tetzchner initially remained a full-time strategic employee at Opera Software, but left in 2011 and founded his own company in 2013 to develop the Vivaldi browser, which was positioned as the successor to the Opera versions until 12.15 . In 2013 von Tetzchner reduced his stake in Opera from 10 to 5.18%.

Takeover by a Chinese consortium

In 2012 there were rumors that Facebook was interested in acquiring Opera Software, but these did not come true.

After a reassessment of the business strategy from August 7, 2015 due to a disappointing business development, at the end of May 2016, the required over 90% of the shareholders voted to sell to the Chinese consortium Golden Brick Silk Road Equity Investment Fund II LLP , consisting of under the Chinese investment fund Golden Brick Silk Road Fund Management LLP from Shenzhen , the mobile games company Beijing Kunlun Tech , the cybersecurity company Qihoo 360 Software Co. Ltd. from Beijing and Yonglian Investment Co. Ltd. from Yinchuan , too. The consortium had offered 10.5 billion crowns (1.1 billion euros) in February. By September 30, 2016, it had acquired divisions and around 1,000 of the 1,560 Opera employees; The areas of browser , performance and data protection apps, the license business and Opera's 29.09% share in the Chinese joint venture nHorizon were taken over . Mediaworks (advertising), Opera TV , apps and games remained independent . Opera- CEO Lars Boilesen headed both parts of the company until the end of 2016, after which the independent division.

See also

Web links

Commons : Opera Software  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Executive Team
  2. ^ Annual report 2015 (PDF), Opera Software ASA
  3. ^ Opera appoints Lars Boilesen new Chief Executive Officer , Opera Software ASA
  4. ^ David Meyer: Opera founder sells shares, potentially clearing way for acquisition. February 12, 2013. Retrieved April 10, 2020 (American English).
  5. ↑ Pocket-lint: Is Facebook about to buy Opera to create own Facebook browser? Retrieved May 25, 2012, April 10, 2020 (UK English).
  6. ↑ spiegel.de , February 10, 2016: Billions on offer: Chinese hedge fund wants to buy Opera browser (July 23, 2016)
  7. ↑ February 10, 2016: ht4u.net: Chinese investor presents takeover offer for Opera (July 23, 2016)
  8. ↑ May 26, 2016, futurezone.at: Opera shareholders approve takeover by Chinese (July 23, 2016); newsweb.no: Voluntary offer - preliminary results
  9. ↑ t3n.de: Chinese consortium buys Opera for 1.1 billion euros ( Memento of the original from July 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / t3n.de
  10. ↑ Opera is not completely sold to China. In: www.golem.de. Retrieved July 20, 2016 .