Alibaba to sell department store chain Intime to Youngor for $1b

Chinese mainland tech heavyweight Alibaba Group Holding Ltd said on Tuesday it will sell its department store chain Intime to textile and apparel company Youngor for 7.4 billion yuan ($1.02 billion), as the company focuses on its core e-commerce and cloud computing businesses.

Alibaba said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it currently holds about 99 percent of the equity interest in Intime, and the expected gross proceeds to Alibaba from Intime sale is about 7.4 billion yuan.

Meanwhile, Alibaba expects to record losses of about 9.3 billion yuan as a result of the sale of Intime, the company said, adding the completion of the Intime sale is subject to the country’s merger control clearance and other customary closing conditions.

In 2014, Alibaba invested $692 million in the Hong Kong-listed Intime as part of its efforts to expand online-to-offline business.

The sale move also came after Alibaba undertook a massive corporate restructuring in 2023 that saw it split into six business groups and shift focus to its e-commerce and cloud units.