Alibaba is offloading its stake in EasyHome, the second largest Chinese home-improvement chain it paid US$866 million for a 15% stake just 11 months ago to push forward the e-commerce giant’s new retail experiment.
Wuhan ZhongShang Commercial Group, a department operator, announced Thursday it’s buying EasyHome’s new retail arm in a US$5.6 billion deal that will also backdoor list the business on the Shenzhen bourse. Alibaba’s stake in the furniture seller will be reduced to 5%.
Alibaba has gone on a shopping spree to buy stakes in big-box retailers such as InTime department store, Suning appliance chain, and RT Mart supermarket, which are part of the company’s plan to bring together online and offline retail channels through internet and big data technologies.
Editor: Ben Jiang
