Alibaba Group announced today that it has agreed to sell its entire stake in Intime Retail to a buyer consortium led by Youngor Group and Intime’s management team. According to publicly available information, the Chinese tech giant holds around 99% of Intime’s stock. The sale is valued at around RMB 7.4 billion ($1 billion). Alibaba expects to incur a loss of about RMB 9.3 billion ($1.3 billion) as a result of the sale of Intime.
Intime, a major offline retail chain, became an integral part of Alibaba’s strategy for integrating online and offline commerce following a strategic partnership announcement in June 2015. The company later accepted Alibaba’s share swap offer, which increased the Taobao owner’s stake to 27.9%, making it the largest shareholder in Intime by June 2016.
Alibaba’s Chairman, Joe Tsai, had previously stated that the company has completed $1.7 billion in non-core asset sales in the first nine months of its 2024 fiscal year (April 1 to December 31, 2023).Earlierreports had suggested that Alibaba was also selling its stakes in physical retail operations, including RT-Mart and Freshippo. [Alibaba Group]
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