Topic: How To Invest

Spinoffs & Takeovers Hotline – Friday, July 17, 2020

Article Excerpt

OPERA LTD., $9.92, symbol OPRA on Nasdaq, is one of the world’s leading web browsers with more than 360 million monthly active users. In addition to its browser, it provides microloans through its fintech business, and news through its AI-powered newsreader. Opera started up in 1994. The company has long positioned itself as an alternative to browsers pre-installed on computers and devices such as Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. In 2016, a Chinese consortium bought the company, then based in Oslo, Norway, for $600 million. In December 2018, Opera acquired a fintech firm in Kenya that makes microloans to approved borrowers under the OKash brand. (Fintech is computer apps and other technology used to support or enable online banking and financial services.) It has since expanded the business into Nigeria and India. In 2019, it made over 15 million short-term microloans to customers in all three countries. The company’s microfinance business had revenues of $128.4 million in 2019, accounting for…