By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-01 12:46:27 | Updated at 2025-01-04 07:19:10
2 days ago
Alibaba Group Holding agreed to sell its entire stake in Sun Art Retail Group, China’s largest hypermarket operator, for HK$13.1 billion (US$1.7 billion), as the e-commerce giant scales back its bricks-and-mortar presence.
The deal between Alibaba and Chinese private-equity firm DCP Capital was reached on the last day of 2024, involving the disposal of the Hangzhou-based company’s interest in Sun Art at HK$1.75 per share, according to a New Year’s Day filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Alibaba is expected to book a 13-billion yuan (US$1.8 billion) loss attributable to its shareholders when sale is completed. Alibaba owns the South China Morning Post.
This marks Alibaba’s second major divestment of a bricks-and-mortar business. In December, the company sold its entire stake in department store chain Intime Retail (Group) to Chinese apparel company Youngor Fashion and members of Intime’s management team, taking a 9.3 billion yuan loss in the deal.
The two deals reflect Alibaba’s sharpened focus on its core e-commerce operations and cloud computing operation, which oversees its artificial intelligence-related businesses, under a strategy initiated by group chief executive Eddie Wu Yongming.
The sale of Sun Art represents a “good opportunity” for Alibaba to “monetise its noncore assets and to utilise such proceeds to better focus on the development of its core businesses”, the company said in its filing.
