Lin Wang, senior director of finance at Asia-based e-commerce provider JD.com, and his colleagues have been busy growing a company to a value of about $30bn.
US retail giant Walmart has increased its stake in JD.com to 12.1%, deepening its partnership with China’s second-largest online shopping platform behind Alibaba, according to a securities filing reported by China Money Network.
In a six-month period, therefore, Walmart more than doubled its shareholding in JD.com from 5.9% last June, when the two companies struck a wide-ranging partnership. In that agreement, Walmart sold its fully-owned Chinese e-commerce player Yihaodian to JD.com in exchange for a 5% stake in JD.com worth about $1.5bn.
JD.com has turned into a business with this striking valuation through adept corporate venturing and acquisitions.
Backed by Tencent, JD.com – also known as Jingdong Mall – ranked fifth in the latest GCV sector power Index. Its deals include investing $200m in China-based last-mile delivery services provider Dada Nexus, which also merged with JD’s logistics subsidiary JD Daojia. The merged company continues to operate under the Dada Nexus brand. Founded in 2014, Dada Nexus runs a crowdsourced delivery platform serving 37 Chinese cities and boasting 1.3 million delivery contractors.
JD.com’s JD Finance subsidiary, created out of a company reorganisation the year before, raised $1bn in its second round at the start of last year, and in March was seeking a $7.3bn valuation in a new round.
JD.com’s decision to divest its 68.6% stakeholding in JD Finance was a first step towards an initial public offering for the financial services spinout and a success for Wang, who as a director for the chief financial officer, Sidney Xuande Huang, is also a vice-president of JD Finance.
The divestment is expected to be completed by the middle of this year and will provide JD.com with a RMB14.3bn ($2bn) windfall. The parent company will also secure the rights to 40% of JD Finance’s future pre-tax profit, which may then be exchanged for a 40% equity stake, pending regulatory approval.
The funds raised by JD has encouraged its push into other deals. Yixin Capital, a China-based online automotive financing subsidiary of automotive retail services provider Bitauto, raised $550m from a consortium featuring its parent company. Investors included local corporations such as JD.com as well as internet companies Tencent and Baidu. In June last year, Baidu, Tencent and JD.com invested $50m in Bitauto to own 3.2%, 7.1% and 23.5% of the company respectively. Huang sits on Bitauto’s board.
William Li, CEO and chairman of Bitauto, said at the time: “Through our cooperation over the past year with JD.com and Tencent – China’s leaders in world-class e-commerce, social media and big data – we have gained tremendous momentum in making Bitauto the industry leader in online automobile transactions.”
China-based healthcare app developer Kingdee Healthcare raised about RMB100m in a series A round co-led by JD.com, according to China Money Network. JD.com, which in 2015 paid $168m for a 10% stake in Kingdee Healthcare’s Hong Kong-listed parent company, enterprise software producer Kingdee International Software, co-led the round with financial services firm Yongjin Group.
But JD’s sights are not limited to China. At the turn of last year it invested $55m in US-based shopping app Wish, which by the end of last year was seeking $500m.
