Alibaba Acquires Controlling Stake in Sun Art
19.10.2020 03:05:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
Alibaba Group Holding Limited (NYSE: BABA and HKEX: 9988, “Alibaba” or “Alibaba Group”) today announced it will invest approximately USD3.6 billion in respect of Sun Art Retail Group Limited (HKEX: 6808, “Sun Art”), a leading hypermarket and supermarket operator in China, that will raise its aggregate direct and indirect stake to approximately 72%1. This transaction demonstrates Alibaba’s continued commitment to Sun Art, and its New Retail strategy by further integrating online and offline resources in China’s retail sector.
As part of the transaction, Alibaba will acquire 70.94% of equity interest in A-RT Retail Holdings Limited (“A-RT”) from Auchan Retail International S.A. and its subsidiary (“Auchan Retail”) valued at approximately HKD28.0 billion (USD3.6 billion). A-RT holds approximately 51% of the equity interest in Sun Art. Following the transaction, Alibaba will consolidate Sun Art in its financial statements. Additionally, Peter Huang has been appointed Chairman of Sun Art in addition to his current role as Chief Executive Officer.
Daniel Zhang, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Group, said: “Alibaba’s strategic investment in Sun Art in 2017 was an important step in our New Retail strategy. The alliance we formed with Auchan Retail and Ruentex was instrumental in building a robust infrastructure to create opportunities and value in China’s retail sector. Led by Chief Executive Officer Peter Huang, Sun Art has achieved impressive results in its digitalization, and pursued promising synergies with businesses across the Alibaba digital economy. As the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the digitalization of consumer lifestyles and enterprise operations, this commitment to Sun Art serves to strengthen our New Retail vision and serve more consumers with a fully integrated experience.”
In November 2017, Alibaba Group, Auchan Retail and Ruentex Group announced a strategic alliance to digitalize and introduce New Retail solutions at Sun Art stores, including omnichannel integration and a more personalized customer experience. Over the past three years, Sun Art has made significant progress in the digital transformation under a fast-changing market environment by leveraging resources and technology from the Alibaba ecosystem, to capitalize on the growth opportunities in China’s hypermarket and supermarket space.
Today, all Sun Art physical stores in China have been integrated into Alibaba’s Taoxianda and Tmall Supermarket platforms, providing one-hour and half-day on-demand delivery through deep collaboration with other key businesses across the Alibaba ecosystem, including Ele.me and Cainiao, offering consumers greater product selection and access. As of June 30, 2020, Sun Art operates 481 hypermarkets and 3 mid-size supermarkets in China, with a focus on strengthening its position through small and offline community stores.
About Alibaba Group
Alibaba Group’s mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere. The company aims to build the future infrastructure of commerce. It envisions that its customers will meet, work and live at Alibaba and that it will be a good company that lasts for 102 years.
1Including the stake held by Alibaba Group and its related party.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201018005074/en/
Contact information
Ivy Ke
Alibaba Group
+852 5590 9949
Ivy.ke@alibaba-inc.com
Cathy Yan
Alibaba Group
+852 9012 5806
cathy.yan@alibaba-inc.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
emnify Appoints Sacha Herrmann as Chief Financial Officer and Christian Friis as Chief Revenue Officer2.10.2026 18:12:00 EEST | Press release
emnify, a global leader in IoT connectivity, today announced the appointments of Sacha Herrmann as Chief Financial Officer and Christian Friis as Chief Revenue Officer, effective immediately. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261001902751/en/ emnify Appoints Sacha Herrmann as Chief Financial Officer and Christian Friis as Chief Revenue Officer The appointments follow the recent naming of Kenneth De Spiegeleire as Chief Executive Officer and Frank Stoecker as Executive Chairman of the Board. Together, these leadership changes strengthen emnify financial, operational, and commercial capabilities as the company enters its next phase of international growth. “We have proven momentum. Our ambition is to now turn it into global category leadership,” said Kenneth De Spiegeleire, CEO of emnify. “That requires sharper focus, disciplined execution, and the right capabilities in the right seats. Sacha brings financial lead
Tacton Appoints Former IFS Executive Merlin Knott as Chief Commercial Officer to Accelerate Global Growth and Scale Beyond CPQ2.10.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
Tacton, a global leader in Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) software and configuration solutions for manufacturers of complex products, today announced the appointment of Merlin Knott as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). In this role, Knott will lead Tacton’s global commercial organization, including marketing, sales, and pre-sales, aligning the teams responsible for bringing Tacton’s solutions to market, and driving value to its customers and partners globally. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261002794882/en/ Merlin Knott, Chief Commercial Officer, Tacton Knott joins Tacton with decades of experience building and scaling commercial organizations across the enterprise software industry. Most recently, he held senior leadership roles at IFS, the world’s leading provider of Industrial AI software, where he led global partner and channel operations before becoming President of the company’s Enterprise Service Manageme
EDW Presents 2026 Data Quality Award to Repeat Winner Domivest2.10.2026 16:00:00 EEST | Press release
European DataWarehouse (EDW) presented its fifth annual Data Quality Award at the 2026 TSI Congress in Berlin. This year, EDW's Best Data Quality – Deal of the Year (2026) award was presented to Domivest B.V. for its transaction Domi 2023-1 B.V., recognising the firm's outstanding commitment to accurate, complete, and consistent reporting. The award is based on EDW's proprietary data quality scoring methodology, which evaluates transactions against thousands of validation rules and checks. Data quality excellence is not a one-off achievement. The fact that the same issuers continue to rank among the top performers year after year demonstrates that superior data quality is the result of sustained commitment, robust processes, and ongoing investment. "Receiving the Data Quality Award for a second time means a great deal to us. Transparent, accurate loan-level data is key to investor trust in our transactions, and we are grateful to European DataWarehouse for recognising the work our trea
ILiAD Biotechnologies Expands BPZE1 Public Health and Commercial Potential with Publication of Pediatric Phase 2b Study in The Lancet Infectious Diseases2.10.2026 15:00:00 EEST | Press release
ILiAD Biotechnologies, Inc. (ILiAD), an advanced clinical stage biotech company focused on the prevention and treatment of disease caused by Bordetella pertussis, today announced the publication of results from its Phase 2b SUPER (Stand Up to Pertussis) clinical trial in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. This randomized, double blind, placebo- and active-comparator-controlled trial demonstrated that BPZE1, a live attenuated intranasal pertussis vaccine, induced robust nasal mucosal immune responses in healthy children aged 6 through 17 years (LINK). The study demonstrated that a single intranasal dose of BPZE1 induced nasal mucosal immune responses against all Bordetella pertussis antigens tested and was well tolerated, both when administered alone and when co-administered with a tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis (Tdap) booster vaccine. The multi-center Phase 2b trial enrolled 366 participants across 16 sites in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Costa Rica and included participants
NIQ Brings New AI and Automation Capabilities to Retail Space Planning and Merchandising2.10.2026 13:45:00 EEST | Press release
NielsenIQ (NYSE: NIQ), a leading consumer intelligence company, today announced new AI and automation capabilities for NIQ Spaceman®, its retail space planning and merchandising platform trusted by more than 600 retailers across 65+ countries. The enhancements help retailers create store-specific planograms up to 50 times faster, identify execution and compliance gaps, and scale merchandising decisions across their store networks through expanded cloud-based access. "Retailers are under increasing pressure to localize assortments, execute consistently across stores, and respond more quickly to changing shopper behavior," said Natalie Williams, SVP, Product at NIQ. "These enhancements help simplify that process by embedding agentic AI directly into merchandising workflows and automating traditionally manual planning tasks. That means teams can spend less time building and updating planograms and more time acting on opportunities. With greater automation, retailers can improve productivi
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom