SANYA, Hainan - Richard Liu, chairman and chief executive officer of 360buy.com, has rebuffed media reports that Wal-Mart planned to expand aggressively in China by taking full control of the website.

Reports surfaced in December that the United States-based retailer was heading a consortium to buy the Chinese website.

However, in the end it was the Walton family, rather than Wal-Mart, the company it controls, that joined the third-round of funding for China's biggest business-to-customer (B2C) website.

"The Walton family invested in 360buy.com through its investment branch and holds a stake of less than 1 percent," Liu told China Daily at a forum in Hainan province on Wednesday.

Though Wal-Mart has not made any investment in 360buy.com, Liu said he hoped to conduct business in areas including logistics with the retailer in the future.

360buy.com has also been a focus for investment by the Russian-based Internet investment group Digital Sky Technologies (DST), which paid more than $500 million to gain a stake.

DST already owns substantial stakes in some of the most successful US-based Internet companies, including Facebook Inc, Groupon Inc and Zynga Inc, according to a report in the Financial Times.

Liu confirmed the DST investment through his micro blog on Wednesday night and said the total sum raised during the latest funding round has "far surpassed $1 billion". By the end of March, more than $800 million had been deposited in 360buy.com's account.

Ten individual investors and investment funds now hold stakes in the website, according to Liu. The company had previously received funding of $180 million from venture capital firms such as Capital Today Co and Tiger Global Management LLC.

Industry analysts said that Liu is likely to lose control of the online retailer because investors now hold a stake of between 40 to 50 percent. However, Liu said no individual investor holds a bigger stake than he does, though the sum of their shares undoubtedly outstrips his holding.

Liu said the funds will go into building a new logistics system and on research and development. The company had previously announced that it plans to spend 8 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) on improving logistics and customer services over the next five years.

360buy.com has also started building a 1.8 million-square-meter logistics warehouse chain in seven Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2013.

Established in 2004, the Beijing-based company has seen an annual growth rate of more than 200 percent during the past five years, but Liu said it may be "disastrous" for the company to maintain such a rapid pace of expansion.

"I hope 360buy.com will maintain a rate of growth of around 100 percent in the coming years, because the company cannot support expansion which is too rapid," Liu said. 360buy.com realized 10.2 billion yuan in revenue in 2010. Liu expects sales to reach 26 billion yuan this year, and to be no lower than 40 billion in 2012.

The company, which focused on the 3Cs - computers, communications and consumer electronics - in its early years, now wants to become a dominant player in other fields. In addition to its general merchandise, 360.com started selling books and launched an online group-buying channel in November.

The company is looking to list in either the US or Hong Kong, but Liu emphasized that an IPO will not happen until 2013 to coincide with the completion of work on its new logistics chain.

Liu also revealed that 360buy.com plans to open an English language version of its B2C operations later this month.

China Daily

(China Daily 04/01/2011 page17)