Alibaba to invest in Intime Retail

Intime Retail (Group) Co Ltd said on Monday that Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, China's e-commerce conglomerate, would invest as much as HK$5.37 billion ($692.2 million) in the Hong Kong-listed department store operator to develop its online-to-offline business.

Intime will issue 220.54 million shares at HK$7.53 each and HK$3.71 billion worth of convertible bonds to a unit of Alibaba, the company said in a filing to the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd.

The investment is expected to give Alibaba a stake in Intime of about 9.9 percent when the deal is completed. The convertible bonds are estimated to allow Alibaba to take no less than 25 percent of Intime when it converts those bonds into common stock shares within three years.

Moreover, the two companies will form a joint venture to combine Intime's offline retail networks and expertise in managing brick-and-mortar stores and Alibaba's strength in e-commerce and big data technology, to develop the online-to-offline business for shopping malls, department stores and supermarkets.

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