Asia news roundup: Alibaba and Ant Financial in back-to-back deals

Alibaba founder and chairman Jack Ma / Photo credit: Alibaba

Big moves by Alibaba dominated today’s headlines.

Fintech

Alibaba to buy a third of Ant Financial (China). Jack Ma’s company has agreed to snap up 33 percent of Alipay’s owner in exchange for certain intellectual property rights. No cash is changing hands, but Ant will end royalty payments to Alibaba that amounted to over US$300 million last fiscal year. Analysts said the transaction could be in preparation for a potential IPO. It comes after Ant’s US expansion was thwarted by the collapse of the MoneyGram deal. (Bloomberg)

Ecommerce and delivery

Alibaba ploughs $146m into online grocer BigBasket (India). The investment strengthens Alibaba’s position in India’s online retail space and poses a challenge to rivals Amazon and SoftBank-backed Grofers. India’s retail market is worth over US$900 billion and grocery shopping accounts for US$600 billion of that, claims the BigBasket’s co-founder, Hari Menon. (Reuters)

Ant Financial now backs Zomato (India). Ant Financial itself is in investment mode, injecting US$200 million into the restaurant discovery and food delivery firm. The transaction values Zomato at about US$1.1 billion, according to reports. The deal could see the company working more closely with payments firm Paytm, which counts Ant as one of its largest investors. Zomato competes with Bangalore-based Swiggy, also heavily financed by investors like Naspers. (Livemint)

See: Previous Asia news roundups

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from Tech in Asia https://www.techinasia.com/apac-news-02-02-2018
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