Suning buys controlling stake in Carrefour China
NANJING, June 23 (Xinhua) — Chinese retailer giant Suning.com announced Sunday that it had signed an agreement to buy a controlling stake in Carrefour China.
Suning International Group Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Suning.com, will invest 4.8 billion yuan (about 700 million U.S. dollars) to buy an 80 percent equity interest in Carrefour China, according to an announcement released by Suning.com.
Tian Rui, vice president of Suning.com, said the transaction is expected to integrate Suning.com’s online-to-offline retail model and logistics network with Carrefour China’s strong supply chain and experience in retailing fast-moving consumer goods.
Carrefour Group said in a press release that it will retain a 20 percent stake in Carrefour China and two seats out of seven on Carrefour China’s supervisory board after the closing of the transaction, which is expected by the end of this year.
The release said “the strong complementarity between Carrefour China and Suning.com’s activities will accelerate the development of Carrefour China,” which has been operating a network of 210 hypermarkets and 24 convenience stores since 1995.
The Nanjing-headquartered Suning.com owns one of China’s leading e-commerce platforms with more than 400 million users and has opened 8,881 stores in China by the end of last year. The retailer saw its net profit increase 216.2 percent in 2018 to 13.3 billion yuan, thanks to soaring online consumption.
France’s Carrefour sells 80% of its Chinese business to Suning.com
PARIS (Reuters) – Carrefour, Europe’s largest retailer, said on Sunday it had agreed to sell 80% of its Chinese operations to Chinese group Suning.com in all-cash transaction.
The deal values Carrefour China at 1.4 billion euros (£1.25 billion), debt included, and is expected to close by the end of 2019, pending regulatory approvals, the French retailer said in a statement.
Carrefour China operates 210 hypermarkets and 24 convenience stores. It generated net sales of 3.6 billion euros and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 66 million euros in 2018.