Inter, Alibaba with Suning will play football as well?
Suning, a company of the group that owns Inter, could be bought by a Chinese consortium led by the e-commerce giant Alibaba. All the details
A consortium led by the Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba and the authority of the province of Jiangsu (in eastern China) is close to concluding an agreement to purchase a stake in Suning.com, the Suning group company active in the sector in retail sales.
Bloomberg writes it, who speaks of it as the latest attempt by the Chinese government to save the most indebted national industrial conglomerates.
WILL ZHANG LOSE CONTROL?
Sources told the agency that once the deal is made, Zhang Jindong – the Chinese billionaire who is Suning's founder and majority shareholder – will no longer have control of the company, which is headquartered in Nanjing, Jiangsu. .
SUNING AND INTER
Zhang is famous in Italy because Suning Holdings Group, the parent company of Suning.com, owns Inter : it became the majority shareholder in 2016 for the sum of 270 million euros. The president of the football club is Zhang's son, Steven Zhang.
SUNING'S FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
Suning.com is a major player in the Chinese retail market, primarily of electronics products.
Its market value is around 52 billion yuan ($ 8 billion), but the company has been in financial difficulty for some time: its business has been damaged by the pandemic crisis, and fears about its liquidity have strengthened. last September, when Zhang waived his right to a payment of 20 billion yuan from Evergrande Group, the large Chinese real estate group and the most indebted in the world. He did it – explains Bloomberg – to help his friend Hui Ka Yan, president of Evergrande.
In early June, a court in Beijing froze Zhang's 5.8 percent stake in Suning.com, worth 3 billion yuan. On the 16th, Suning's shares on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, where it is listed, were suspended.
Suning.com will have to repay or refinance 1.7 billion yuan in securities by next month. It also has to deal with debts falling due within a year of $ 7 billion.
THE GOAL OF THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT
Bloomberg writes that the Chinese government wants to discourage the uncontrolled expansion of some companies, whose debts have reached dimensions that are dangerous for the stability of the national financial market.
Suning, for example, operates in a large number of different industries, from retail (it has taken over the Carrefour division in China, for example) to real estate to sports. This acquisition frenzy, as Bloomberg calls it, also affects other Chinese industrial conglomerates – such as the HNA Group and the Dalian Wanda Group – which have been ordered to spin off or move under government control.
WHAT ALIBABA DOES WITH SUNING
The e-commerce giant Alibaba itself was subjected to a lengthy investigation for monopoly practices and eventually forced by the Chinese regulator to pay a $ 2.8 billion fine.
The company already owns – since 2015, for 4.6 billion dollars – a 20 percent stake in Suning, a long-time partner in the distribution sector. Quote that, from the moment of purchase, has lost two thirds of its value.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/inter-alibaba-con-suning-giochera-pure-a-calcio/ on Thu, 01 Jul 2021 13:10:17 +0000.