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produced by | e-commerce news pro

author | yang zi

rt-mart's parent company temporarily suspended trading, related to acquisitions and mergers

since last year, news has been circulating that rt-mart will be sold by alibaba. after spreading and refuting the rumors several times, just when everyone thought it was not true, unexpectedly, rt-mart was very likely to be sold.

recently, sun art retail, the parent company of rt-mart, suddenly issued an announcement in the name of executive director and ceo shen hui, stating that it will start trading on the hong kong stock exchange at 9:39 a.m. on september 27.trading halt, waiting forannouncement containing inside information of the company in accordance with the corporate takeovers and mergers code。

source: sun art retail announcement

according to this announcement, the news of rt-mart being sold has almost been confirmed.as the transaction progresses, which company will eventually take over rt-mart has become the focus of the industry. at present, there are rumors in the market that the buyers include cofco, hillhouse capital, runtai, kkr group, etc.

as early as march this year, there were rumors that cofco would acquire rt-mart for 10 billion yuan, but the rumors were later refuted by rt-mart. it is reported that cofco is a state-owned enterprise whose main business involves agricultural grain, food and other fields. there is a certain possibility of acquiring rt-mart. there are also rumors that the acquirer is kkr group, a veteran leveraged buyout king who is good at industrial investment.

it is worth mentioning thathillhouse capital is considered to be the most likely potential buyer to acquire rt-mart, and there are rumors that hillhouse capital may join forces with runtai for this acquisition.。

as a well-known investment institution, hillhouse capital has a fruitful investment record in the past, including jd.com, tencent, bytedance, meituan, belle international, gree electric, blue moon and other companies, all of which have received investment from hillhouse capital.

in 2017, zhang lei of hillhouse capital spent 53.1 billion yuan to acquire the troubled "chinese shoe king" belle and delisted it from the hong kong stock market. at that time, belle's two founders cashed out 13 billion yuan and left the market. among them, founder deng yao also expressed pessimism about belle's future.he said bluntly, "belle's energy has been exhausted, and there is no possibility of turning back.". however, hillhouse capital gave it a new lease of life, not only creating a new growth point for "belle clothing", but also spinning off "taobo sports" for listing. the latter's stock price once reached as high as 70 billion hong kong dollars.

in addition, runtai group, as the controlling shareholder of sun art retail, sold approximately 36% of sun art retail's shares to alibaba for hk$22.4 billion in 2017. in 2020, alibaba once again increased its investment, investing more than hk$20 billion to further increase its stake, bringing its shareholding ratio in sun art retail to more than 70%.

runtai group transferred sun art retail to alibaba twice at its peak. if this rumor is true, it is indeed a smart deal of selling high and buying low.

it is worth mentioning that just a few days ago, another supermarket company, yonghui supermarket, was also sold by jd.com. on the evening of september 23, yonghui supermarket issued an announcement.dairy milk company and subsidiaries of jd group, jd world trade and suqian hanbangit transferred 1.913 billion shares, 367 million shares and 388 million shares of yonghui supermarket respectively, accounting for 21.08%, 4.05% and 4.27% of the company's total share capital respectively.

source: yonghui supermarket announcement

after the transaction is completed, juncai international, a subsidiary of miniso, will become the largest shareholder of yonghui supermarket, holding a total of 29.40% of the company's shares. the consideration for this share transfer is approximately6.27 billion yuan. that is, miniso spent nearly 6.3 billion yuan to acquire yonghui supermarket.

after this equity transfer, suqian hanbang no longer holds shares, and jd world trade’s shareholding dropped from 6.98% to 2.94%.

there was yonghui supermarket before and rt-mart later. commercial and supermarket companies were acquired one after another. it can be seen that the acquirers are very optimistic about retail companies with potential.

of course, traditional supermarkets are now facing pressure for transformation and upgrading, and they also need new ways of survival and development.

rt-mart and alibaba have worked together for 7 years, but still have not overcome the difficulties

rt-mart, founded in 1996, was founded by huang mingduan in taiwan and is controlled by runtai group.

two years later, rt-mart began to enter the mainland market, starting with third- and fourth-tier cities and then gradually expanding to first-tier cities.

in 2000, in order to accelerate market development, runtai group and auchan group entered into a joint venture agreement and cross-shareholding. runtai group transferred 67% of rt-mart taiwan's shares to auchan group. at the same timethe two parties established a holding company "sun art retail" in hong kong to promote the development of mainland store business with the two major brands "auchan" and "rt-mart".

at this point, runtai holds 66.38% of rt-mart's equity through sun art retail, and auchan holds 33.62% of rt-mart's equity. auchan directly holds 67.2% of auchan china's equity, and runtai holds 32.8% of auchan's equity.

as sun art retail continues to grow and develop, it can compete with two world-class retailers, walmart and carrefour. howeverwith the rise of the e-commerce industry, rt-mart, which focuses on the physical retail industry, has been hit and has to find a new way out.at this time, rt-mart focused on "new retail" and regarded it as a key strategic direction.

just in 2017, sun art retail found a successor - alibaba.at that time, sun art retail had great confidence in alibaba. yuan bin, then coo of rt-mart, said: "alibaba and its subsidiary hema have done all the trial and error. now that the highway is paved, rt-mart can just run."

alibaba, on the other hand, has taken a fancy to the "people, goods and market" advantages behind sun art retail. rt-mart, a subsidiary of sun art retail, has a huge offline user base and can become an important supplement to alibaba in the field of e-commerce.

in addition, rt-mart has established cooperative relationships with many suppliers, and has physical stores all over the country. it also has a mature system for product procurement and inventory management.

by acquiring sun art retail, alibaba can combine its advantages in e-commerce with sun art retail's advantages in physical retail, achieve deep online and offline integration, and promote the development of its new retail strategy.

in 2020, alibaba invested in sun art retail for the second time. at that time, the market value of sun art retail reached its peak of 100 billion. however, this cooperation later did not achieve the expected results. in the following years, sun art's retail performance was poor. in 2017, sun art retail's revenue was 102.32 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.9%; the net profit during the same period was 2.793 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.6%.

however, after 2017, sun art retail's revenue and profit growth rates have declined year by year, and it even suffered its first loss since its listing in 2022.

in may this year, sun art retail disclosed its performance announcement for the 2024 fiscal year ending on march 31. the financial report shows that the company's revenue in fiscal year 2024 was 72.567 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 13.3%; the net loss attributable to the parent company was 1.668 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2238.5%.

source: modern logistics news

in february this year, there were reports of store closures in many rt-mart stores, announcing that they would cease operations. for example, rt-mart's jiangsu zhenjiang xuefu road store, rt-mart's sichuan deyang store, and rt-mart's hunan zhuzhou store have successively issued announcements to cease operations.

according to incomplete statistics, from january 2023 to february this year, at least 13 rt-mart stores closed or announced store closures, involving hunan, jiangsu, hubei, sichuan and other provinces. the main reasons for store closures were lease expiration and operating adjustments. wait.

looking back on the past seven years, alibaba's support for sun art retail does not seem to be significant. after alibaba gradually withdraws, it is still unknown whether the resold rt-mart can return to its former glory in the future.

after being resold, can rt-mart return to its peak?

under the impact of e-commerce, the decline of traditional supermarket chains has become a common trend. traditional supermarkets such as wal-mart, carrefour, and yonghui supermarket are all looking for solutions.

for rt-mart, the current solution may be to return to the essence of retail. in march this year, lin xiaohai resigned as ceo of sun art retail, and shen hui became the new executive director and ceo of sun art retail. he emphasized: “the group is rapidly adjusting its strategic direction.return to the essence of retail and regain the original intention and foundation of rt-mart. we willreshape the price power mentality and strive to return to the track of revenue growth。”

at the same time, the company’s chairman huang mingduan also made it clear, “increasing revenue and reducing costs is the top priority, and turning losses into profits is the company's current top priority."he called on the company to stick to its commitment to saving every penny for customers and return to the essence of retail.

in other words, rt-mart needs to refocus on the basic principles of its retail business, including providing competitive prices, optimizing customer experience, improving operational efficiency, reducing costs, and restoring and strengthening its core values ​​and service commitments to restore the company's revenue growth and profitability.

today, rt-mart is facing a market structure impacted by e-commerce. no matter who it is acquired by, it must follow the market trend and explore a unique and differentiated development path. as for whether he can return to the top, it remains to be tested by time.