On December 17th, Alibaba announced that the company and another minority shareholder have agreed to sell 100% equity of Intime to a consortium of buyers consisting of members of the Yagor Group and Intime management team. The total proceeds from the sale of Intime by Alibaba are approximately RMB 7.4 billion.
It is worth mentioning that for over a year, selling off non core business-related investments has become an important part of Alibaba's strategy.
In September 2023, Alibaba established two strategic priorities of "user first, AI driven" and stated that it will focus on these two priorities to streamline its business and reshape its strategic priorities.
As of now, Alibaba has successively reduced its holdings in several Hong Kong listed companies, including Xiaopeng Motors (09868. HK), Kuaidou Dache (02246. HK), and cleared its holdings in Bilibili (09626. HK), SenseTime (00020. HK), and Baoshan E-commerce (09991. HK).
This sale is also another asset sale action under Alibaba's core business strategy.
As early as early February this year, there were rumors in the market that Alibaba was considering selling Intime Department Store. During the February earnings conference call, the management also responded by saying, 'We still have some traditional physical retail businesses on our balance sheet, which are not our core focus. It would be very reasonable if we could complete the exit.'.
At the meeting, CEO Wu Yongming also stated that under the strategic focus, the highest priority for the group is to reignite the growth momentum of its two core businesses, e-commerce and cloud computing. Prior to this, Wu Yongming also proposed that for non core businesses, asset value should be realized through quick profitability or other capitalization methods in order to return value to shareholders.
On the other hand, in September 2024, the China Securities Regulatory Commission issued the "Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Market for Mergers and Acquisitions of Listed Companies", which further stimulated the vitality of China's mergers and acquisitions market from the perspectives of supporting cross industry mergers and acquisitions, simplifying the transaction process of the restructuring market, and improving regulatory inclusiveness.
Perhaps driven by policies, after entering the fourth quarter, there are obvious signs of acceleration in the capital operation of Alibaba's equity assets.
On October 16th, Sun Yat sen Retail (06808. HK), the parent company of RT Mart, resumed trading after nearly 20 days of suspension. It was announced that discussions between shareholders such as Taobao China and potential bidders regarding the main terms of the possible offer and any irrevocable commitments are underway.
According to the financial report, as of now, Alibaba Group holds 7.508 billion shares in Gaoxin Retail through its controlling company, with an equity income of 78.7%.
On December 16th, Gaoxin Retail announced that it has not received any definite intention from the intended offeror to make a possible offer, but it has also not received any notification from the intended offeror that they have decided not to proceed with the possible offer.
However, judging from the sale of Intime Department Store, it may only be a matter of time before Alibaba further sells its traditional offline retail business.
In addition, on November 27th, A-share listed company Liren Beauty (605136. SH) disclosed that its shareholder Hangzhou Haoyue Enterprise Management Co., Ltd., which holds more than 5% of the shares, intends to transfer no more than 70.3767 million shares of the company's shares, which is no more than 17.57% of the company's total share capital.
On December 12th, Anheng Information (688023. SH) also announced that shareholder Alibaba Venture Capital intends to participate in the pre IPO shareholder inquiry transfer due to its own funding needs. The number of shares to be transferred is 2.0454 million, accounting for 2% of the company's total share capital.
According to data, Hangzhou Haoyue, as a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, has received over 30 billion yuan in Alibaba Group equity investments from related parties such as Alibaba Network and Alibaba Venture Capital in history.
According to Tianyancha's equity penetration information, Hangzhou Haoyue currently holds equity in several A-share listed companies, including Suning.com, Qianfang Technology, Juran Home, Meinian Health, and Focus Media.
According to Alibaba's latest quarterly consolidated financial report, as of September 30, 2024, the group still has over 140 billion yuan in equity investments on its books, of which the equity of listed companies is as high as 67.629 billion yuan.
Overall, in the policy driven merger and acquisition cycle, this clearance sale of Intime shares is also likely to be the beginning of Alibaba's new round of "slimming down".