ELong Special Committee Appoints Independent Financial Advisor And Legal Counsel

(RTTNews) - eLong, Inc. (LONG), a mobile and online travel service provider in China, said the special committee of the company's board of directors has retained Duff & Phelps as its financial advisor and Kirkland & Ellis as its legal counsel in connection with its review and evaluation of the previously-announced non-binding "going private" proposal from Tencent Holdings Limited received on August 3.

The company had said earlier this month that it received a preliminary non-binding proposal from Tencent Holdings Ltd for a going private transaction.

Tencent has proposed to buy all outstanding ordinary shares of eLong not beneficially owned by TCH Sapphire Ltd, a subsidiary of Tencent, for $18 in cash per American depositary share.