(Bloomberg) — While many consumers load up on holiday goods, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is busy selling assets, even if it means a loss.
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The Chinese tech firm kicked off 2025 by announcing the sale of more than 70% of its stake in hypermarket chain Sun Art Retail Group Ltd. at a steep discount to its $3 billion valuation. A few weeks ago, it agreed to sell the department store business to Intime Retail Group Co. at a loss of $1.3 billion.
E-Mart Inc. in South Korea in a flurry of festive season transactions. including forming a $4 billion joint venture with Gmarket’s e-commerce platform.
Alibaba’s busy patch follows its record convertible bond issue in May, a boost for bankers and other managers involved. Six months later, it sold its first public dollar bonds in years, as well as offshore yuan notes for a total of about $5 billion.
The transactions in a little over half a year show that Alibaba is reviving a deal machine that has stalled since 2020, when Beijing accused it of monopolistic behavior and the growing influence of tech firms. stopped With that crackdown now running its course, China is once again encouraging tech investment to revive the economy and drive AI research.
Alibaba’s statement on the sale of Sun Art described it as “a good opportunity” to monetize non-core assets. As Alibaba tries to more closely integrate its e-commerce operations and raise capital, more activity could be on the horizon.
“Recent non-core asset disposals signal Alibaba’s clear focus on technology, e-commerce and AI as Eddie Wu moves into his second year as the firm’s CEO,” said Bloomberg Intelligence’s Kathryn Lim.
Alibaba shares fell 1.3% on Thursday in Hong Kong, but bounced back with a 3% gain on Friday, the biggest jump since Dec. 24.
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