Alibaba Group Holding is expected to sell its department store chain Intime Retail (Group) to Chinese apparel company Youngor Fashion as China’s e-commerce giant walks away from offline retailing, according to people familiar with the matter.
The two sides are expected to announce the deal this week, said one source, who declined to be named. Detailed terms of the deal remain unknown.
Alibaba, owner of the South China Morning Post, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Younger, the textile and clothing company based in the eastern city of Ningbo, did not immediately respond to a similar request.
If confirmed, Alibaba’s divestment would come seven years after it teamed up with Intime’s founder to take the mainland shopping centre and department store chain operator private in a HK$19.8 billion (US$2.5 billion) cash transaction.
At the time, the deal was hailed as part of Alibaba’s “new retailing” push to combine online and offline businesses. Before the privatisation, Alibaba invested US$692 million in Hong Kong-listed Intime as part of a series of business expansion initiatives made by the group months before its initial public offering in New York in September 2014.
