Caixin News, May 31 (Reporter Xu Cihao) - Baozun E-commerce, an e-commerce service provider listed on both the US and Hong Kong stock markets, announced today that starting from May 30, 2024, Ms. Liu Yang has resigned from her position as a director due to a change in Alibaba's equity in the company.
Meanwhile, the board of directors was informed that on May 30, 2024, the company's major shareholder Alibaba and Champion Kerry Inc. entered into a purchase and sale agreement. Alibaba agreed to sell and Champion Kerry Inc. agreed to purchase 26.4694 million Class A common shares of the company, accounting for approximately 14.4% of the total issued shares of the company as of March 31, 2024 (share transfer). Following the transfer of shares, Alibaba will no longer be a shareholder of the company, Champion Kerry Inc. will become the main shareholder of the company.
Regarding this, relevant personnel from Baozun E-commerce told Caixin News that the company is concerned about the transactions between the two investors and the adjustment of corresponding board seats. For other details of equity conversion transactions, please refer to the investor's announcement. The company will not comment.
"We understand that Alibaba is a normal trading behavior after its investment strategy adjustment, and new investors have a long-term recognition of Baozun's value positioning. This transaction does not affect our daily business cooperation and strategic coordination with various e-commerce platforms." The above-mentioned Baozun e-commerce personnel emphasized.
According to public information, Baozun E-commerce, established in 2007, is an e-commerce service provider mainly engaged in building online stores for brand enterprises and retailers, including website construction, updates, and hosting, IT infrastructure construction, customer service, warehousing and distribution, etc.
In the early days of its establishment, Baozun E-commerce developed official shopping malls and Taobao flagship stores for Philips and Li Ning. At present, its business has covered the construction of various channels, including the official brand mall, Tmall and JD, social mobile mall, and offline intelligent stores. According to the official website, the Baozun e-commerce brand has 450 customers, including well-known enterprises in multiple fields such as Nike, Microsoft, and Panasonic.
After the establishment of Baozun E-commerce, there was a close relationship with Alibaba. According to previous reports, in 2009, the founder of Baozun E-commerce met Huang Mei, the investment manager of Alibaba, while attending a brand association meeting held by Taobao. Through Huang Mei's connections, Baozun E-commerce obtained a financing of millions of dollars from Alibaba a year later.
According to Tianyancha Business Information, in addition to its strategic investment of millions of dollars in January 2010, Alibaba joined forces with Kaixin Investment and Hanli Capital to invest tens of millions of dollars in March 2011.
According to the equity structure in the prospectus, as of the 2015 US stock market listing, Alibaba was the largest shareholder of Baozun E-commerce, holding approximately 2.64 million shares of common stock, with a shareholding ratio of 23.5%.
On May 28th, Baozun E-commerce released its first quarter financial report, which showed that the company's total revenue in the first quarter was 1.98 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.9%; The net loss was 66.6 million yuan. In recent years, Baozun E-commerce has been in a loss making state. According to past financial report data, from 2021 to 2023, Baozun's revenue was 9.396 billion yuan, 8.4 billion yuan, and 8.812 billion yuan respectively; The losses were 220 million yuan, 653 million yuan, and 278 million yuan respectively.
It is worth noting that in December last year, Alibaba withdrew from seven listed companies, including Focus Media, Qianfang Technology, Meinian Health, and Surprise Home, within three days.
On February 7, 2024, during the third quarter financial report conference call, Alibaba executives stated that unlike before, Alibaba will focus more on its core business, especially e-commerce (including domestic and overseas e-commerce) and cloud computing. In the first nine months of fiscal year 2024, Alibaba completed a $1.7 billion sale of non core assets. Alibaba has formed a special team to address issues such as how to exit stocks of some listed companies.
As of the time of publication, the Hong Kong stock of Baozun E-commerce rose slightly by 0.14% to close at HKD 7.02, with a market value of HKD 1.292 billion.