Alibaba Group to pay US$3.6 billion to take control of China’s biggest hypermarket operator Sun Art from French billionaire Mulliez family

Name: Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang on how technology is reshaping consumer buying behaviour
Uploaded: 2020-10-19T00:12:36.000Z
Description: Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang on how technology is reshaping consumer buying behaviour

Alibaba will double its effective stake in Hong Kong-listed Sun Art Retail Group with a deal with Mulliez family’s Auchan Holding

Deal gives Alibaba Group 72 per cent stake in hypermarket chain with 484 outlets as efforts to combine offline and online stores accelerate

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A customer pushes a shopping trolley at Sun Art Retail Group's Auchan hypermarket store in Beijing in November 2015. Photo: Reuters

Yujing Liu

Published: 8:12am, 19 Oct 2020Updated: 2:14pm, 20 Oct 2020

Alibaba Group is taking control of China’s largest hypermarket operator Sun Art Retail Group from the French billionaire Mulliez family, boosting its stranglehold on e-commerce as the Covid-19 pandemic intensified efforts to integrate online and offline shopping. Both stocks rallied.

Alibaba, which runs Taobao, the world’s largest online marketplace, will pay HK$28 billion (US$3.6 billion) to double its effective stake in the Hong Kong-listed group to 72 per cent, according to a company statement. It will effect the transaction by buying 70.9 per cent stake in A-RT Retail Holdings, which owns 51 per cent of Sun Art.

A-RT Retail is controlled by Auchan Holding, a unit of the Mulliez family investment, according to the company’s latest annual report.

Following the completion of the stake purchase, Alibaba is also interested in buying the remaining of Sun Art’s shares for HK$17 billion or at HK$8.10 per share, it said in an exchange filing on Monday. The price represents a 21 per cent premium over its Friday closing price. Alibaba intends to maintain Sun Art’s listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange, it said.

Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post, jumped 1.1 per cent to HK$297.20 at the close of trading in Hong Kong, after earlier hitting an intra-day record of HK$299.40. Sun Art surged 19 per cent to HK$9.45, e biggest one-day gain since April 2015. They added HK69.2 billion in market value.

Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang on how technology is reshaping consumer buying behaviour

Operator of hypermarket brands Auchan and RT-Mart, Sun Art had a total of 484 outlets across China by the end of June. It formed a strategic alliance with Alibaba in 2017 to digitise its shops, after the tech giant invested HK$22.4 billion for a 36 per cent stake in the company.

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