not vested
Health in Alibaba sights
Mainland e-commerce firm Alibaba Group Holding is injecting its online pharmacy operations into a Hong Kong-listed affiliate in a HK$19.45 billion deal to consolidate its health-care enterprise and ride a boom in online health-related business.
Shares in the affiliate, Alibaba Health Information Technology (0241), nearly doubled early yesterday after the announcement on a resumption of trading after being suspended since March 20.
Alibaba Health will buy 100 percent of the online pharmacy operations from a wholly owned subsidiary of Alibaba Group and another investor. It will issue shares and bonds to fund the purchase, with the shares priced at HK$5.28 each.
"We expect that this integration will enable Alibaba Group to build a health-care ecosystem that can utilize e-commerce, big data and other technologies to improve the health-care supply chain," Alibaba Group chief operating officer Daniel Zhang said.
Online pharmacies are currently limited to selling over-the-counter medicines and health-care products such as cough remedies and vitamin tablets, but China is gearing up to open the prescription drug market to online pharmacy operators like Alibaba Health, JD.com and Wal-Mart Stores.
The deal, which is subject to approval by independent shareholders of Alibaba Health, is expected to be completed in the third quarter this year, raising Alibaba Group's effective equity ownership of Alibaba Health to about 53 percent from 38 percent and making it a consolidated subsidiary, it said.
Rivals such as Tencent Holdings (0700), JD.com and Baidu have all made moves to get into China's online health-care market, seen as a potential cure for a fragmented and opaque market controlled by state-run distributors and hospitals.
Source: REUTERS