@zaobaosg: British media reports that Chinese tech giant Tencent is in talks to become the largest shareholder of AI company Manus.
Summary
British media reports that Chinese tech giant Tencent is in talks to become the largest shareholder of AI company Manus. It plans to join existing investors to buy back Manus from Meta, with the deal expected to be worth at least $2 billion.
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UK Media: Tencent in Talks to Become Manus’ Largest Shareholder
Source: https://www.zaobao.com.sg/news/china/story20260710-9343433?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter
UK media reports that Chinese tech giant Tencent is in talks to become the largest shareholder of AI company Manus. (Reuters file photo)
UK media reports that Chinese tech giant Tencent is in talks to become the largest shareholder of AI company Manus. (Reuters file photo)
(LONDON/WASHINGTON, Combined) Chinese internet giant Tencent is reportedly in talks with Manus to become the largest shareholder of the Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company.
This follows the Beijing-ordered cancellation of a deal by US tech giant Meta to acquire Manus (https://www.zaobao.com.sg/news/china/story20260427-8961904?ref=article-inline). The Financial Times reported on Friday (July 10), citing sources, that Tencent, together with most of Manus’ existing investors including ZhenFund and HSG (formerly Sequoia Capital China), plans to buy back Manus from Meta at a price of no less than US2 billion (S2.585 billion).
Sources said the negotiations are ongoing and may bring in new investors. Tencent is expected to acquire the largest portion of shares in this transaction, but will still remain a minority shareholder, and Manus will continue to operate independently from Singapore (https://www.zaobao.com.sg/finance/singapore/story20251231-8033873?ref=article-inline), rather than being folded into Tencent’s business.
Manus is an AI company founded in China and later relocated to Singapore, focused on developing AI agents that can autonomously complete tasks with minimal human intervention. Meta announced in December last year its intention to acquire Manus for over US$2 billion.
Bloomberg reported in June that since Chinese authorities called off the deal in April, Meta internally began operational separation from Manus and stopped data sharing between the two companies.
Tencent has a long-standing partnership with Manus, and this move bets that increasing its stake will create synergies with its own AI agent initiatives.
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