Alibaba to sell department store Intime, to record $1.3 bln loss on sale

Investing.com– Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) said on Tuesday it will sell its stake in Chinese department store operator Intime to a consortium of buyers including Youngor Group and Intime executives, and will clock a large loss on the sale.

The ecommerce giant will sell its 99% stake in the chain for about 7.4 billion yuan ($1 billion), and will record a loss of 9.3 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) on the sale, Alibaba said in an announcement on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. 

The sale comes after Bloomberg reported the potential deal on Monday. Alibaba purchased Intime in 2017 for $2.6 billion, and was reportedly mulling a sale of the business earlier this year. 

The company undertook a massive corporate restructuring in 2023 that saw it carve up its holdings into six separate units and shift focus to its key money makers, chiefly its e-commerce and cloud units. 

The Intime sale is also likely part of this restructuring, as physical retailers grapple with a sustained downturn in foot traffic due to dwindling Chinese consumer spending. This has also impacted Alibaba’s core businesses, with the firm clocking middling quarterly earnings over the past two years.

Alibaba is also considering selling its stake in supermarket chain Sun Art Retail Group Ltd (HK:6808), with negotiations over the sale currently in progress. 

Alibaba’s Hong Kong shares (HK:9988) fell 1.5% after it announced the Intime deal on Tuesday.