On December 16th, there were rumors in the market that Alibaba was in talks with Intime Department Store to sell its related shares to Yagor, a leading enterprise in the textile and clothing industry. In response to this rumor, a reporter from the International Finance News immediately sought confirmation from relevant parties. As of press time, Alibaba and Intime Department Store have not received a response, while Yagor responded that the listed company has no undisclosed information that should have been disclosed.
Yintai Commercial originated from Yintai Department Store (Wulin Branch) founded by Shen Guojun in Hangzhou in 1998. It covers various formats such as department stores and shopping centers. In 2007, Yintai Department Store became the first mainland department store listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (stock code: 01833. HK).
On March 31, 2014, Alibaba invested HKD 5.37 billion in Intime Commercial, holding no less than 25% of the shares, becoming the second largest shareholder of Intime Commercial. The shareholding of Intime Commercial Chairman Shen Guojun was diluted from 35.92% to 26.53%. At that time, Intime announced that the two parties would establish a joint venture to develop O2O business. After the investment, the two parties would connect their membership and payment systems, and integrate their product systems. In June 2014, Alibaba and Intime established a joint venture called "New Intime", launching products such as Intime Treasure and jointly creating an O2O model for the retail industry.
In 2015, Alibaba increased its stake in Intime and became its largest shareholder, with Zhang Yong, the then CEO of Alibaba Group, serving as the CEO, marking the beginning of Intime's business era as Alibaba. In the eyes of the outside world, Intime can be considered as the first business carrier to carry Alibaba's new retail.
In May 2017, Alibaba and Shen Guojun privatized Yintai Commercial for 17.7 billion yuan. At that time, Alibaba's stake in Yintai Commercial increased to 74%, while Shen Guojun's was 16%. Yintai Commercial was delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and became Alibaba's new retail sector. Two years later, Alibaba once shouted the slogan of "creating another Intime in the next five years".
However, the turning point occurred in 2023. In March of that year, after Alibaba launched an organizational change to build a "1+6+N" model, news of plans to sell products from companies such as Intime, Gaoxin Retail, and Hema emerged one after another. Although Alibaba denied the rumors, they remained rampant.
Focusing on Yintai, in 2023, when Cai Chongxin succeeded Zhang Yong as the head of Alibaba, there were reports that Alibaba had already begun negotiations for the sale of Yintai. At the beginning of this year, there were rumors that Alibaba had approached several companies regarding the sale of its department store and shopping center operator, Intime Commercial, to evaluate their interest in acquiring Intime. At the Alibaba financial report conference in February 2024, Alibaba Group Chairman Joseph Tsai stated that the progress of non core asset sales has been very smooth. In the nine months since the 2024 fiscal year, Alibaba has withdrawn $1.7 billion of non core assets. There are still many traditional physical retail businesses on Alibaba's balance sheet that are not core businesses, and it is reasonable to withdraw. However, considering the current challenging market situation, it still takes time to achieve.
It is worth mentioning that, possibly influenced by the aforementioned acquisition rumors, on December 16th, Yagor's stock price surged during trading, ultimately closing at 9.05 yuan, up 5.72%, with a total market value of 41.842 billion yuan.