Suning, one of China&a;rsquo;s largest online and offline retailers, said in&a;nbsp;a press release&a;nbsp;today it will take over 37 department stores with a membership of four million consumers.
The agreement is the second since the beginning of last year involving Wang and Suning, itself led by high-powered China billionaire Zhang Jindong. &a;nbsp;Wanda Commercial, Wang&a;rsquo;s main real estate company, in early 2018 said a 14% stake in the business has been sold for $5.4 billion to investors that included Suning, as well as Internet heavyweights Tencent and JD.com, and real estate developer Sunac. &a;nbsp;It didn&s;t disclose the sellers.
Suning&a;rsquo;s latest move underscores the&a;nbsp;quickening online-to-offline integration of retailing&a;nbsp;at a time of slowing economic growth in the&a;nbsp;world&a;rsquo;s No. 2 economy.&a;nbsp; &a;nbsp;&a;nbsp;Alibaba Group, the country&a;rsquo;s largest e-commerce company, in recent years acquired the Intime Department Store chain, and is currently expanding in the fresh grocery business through a self-run chain, Hema.&a;nbsp;&a;nbsp;Tencent last year bought a stake in grocery chain Yonghui Superstores, which is also partly owned by JD.com.
Wanda, one of the world&a;rsquo;s largest real estate developers, hasn&a;rsquo;t found much success in e-commerce, and the sale of its department stores will potentially allow the Beijing-headquartered company to focus elsewhere.
Wanda may also be able to use the receipts to pare down debt. Once one of China&a;rsquo;s most active international investors, Wanda has in the past two years sold off real estate and entertainment industry assets to businesses that also include Guangzhou R&a;amp;F, led by billionaire Zhang Li. Wang notably last year lowered his stake in U.S. movie theatre chain AMC.
--Follow me on Twitter @rflannerychina
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