Taobao Marketplace has always been a gold mine of unusual things for sale, but an auction of a stake in private Chinese online lender WeBank for 441 million yuan (US$64 million) should qualify as one of the more curious lots to come under the hammer.
The business-to-consumer operation of Alibaba Group Holding is auctioning 12.6 million shares of WeBank at 35 yuan per share, following a ruling by the Shanghai No 1 Intermediate People’s Court against Shenzhen Brightoil Petroleum Group over an unpaid loan to Ping An Bank, according to a disclosure released by the court last Friday.