China’s Alibaba Unveils Corporate Restructuring

variety.com:

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce and media group, unveiled a top to bottom corporate restructuring that it says is intended to “unlock shareholder value and foster market competitiveness.”  The group, which has a current market capitalization of $228 billion, will split itself into six divisions of differing sizes.

Each unit will have a CEO and a board of directors and can pursue independent fund-raising or even IPOs, when they are ready.

At present Alibaba has its shares and ADR shares listed in Hong Kong and New York. Some parts of its media business also have their own Hong Kong share listing Alibaba Pictures. (And there is a healthcare business with yet another share quote.) The six new business clusters will be: Cloud Intelligence (cloud computing, AI and its Slack equivalent Ding Talk); Taobao Tmall Commerce (mainland China e-commerce and digital malls); Local Services (navigation and delivery); Cainiao Smart Logistics; Global Digital Commerce (international commerce); and Digital Media and Entertainment.

Fan Luyuan will be CEO of Digital Media and Entertainment, spanning Youku (China’s number three SVOD platform), Alibaba Pictures and other unspecified businesses. “This transformation will empower all our businesses to become more agile, enhance decision-making, and enable faster responses to market changes,” said Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang in a letter to employees and shareholders.