Suning.com announces the acquisition of Carrefour China to achieve leaping development of FMCG retailing operations

NANJING, China, June 23, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Suning.com (the Company), the Fortune Global 500 retailer owned by Suning Holdings Group, one of the largest commercial enterprises in China, announced today it would buy an 80% equity stake in Carrefour China for €620 million (RMB 4.8 billion). After the transaction completes, Suning.com will become the controlling shareholder of Carrefour China.

Following after the strategic acquisition of the nationwide 37 stores of Chinese commercial real estate giant Wanda Group earlier this year, the transaction with Carrefour China will accelerate Suning.com's business expansion in all-categories merchandise retailing with reinforcing its market competitiveness of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) operations. And the further enriched bricks-and-mortar portfolios will also improve the shopping experience for local consumers.

As the leading omni-channel smart retailer in China, Suning.com has always been committed to building a full-scenarios retail ecosystem both online and offline and from cities to township, to create diversified shopping experiences visible and ready to serve consumers anytime and anywhere. The strong complementarity between Suning.com and Carrefour China's activities could make the Company effectively accumulate the quality resources of the comprehensive supermarket such as domestic store network and global supply chains, to boost Suning.com's specialized operation and new business exploration in consumer goods category.

Carrefour Group is one of the world's leading retailers. With a presence in China dating back to 1995, Carrefour China operates a network of 210 hypermarkets and 24 convenience stores, covering 51 large and medium-sized cities in China with 30 million registered customers. In 2018, it generated net sales of €3.6 billion (RMB 28.5 billion) and EBITDA of €66 million (RMB 516 million), listed on the China's top 10 chain enterprises of FMCG (supermarket / convenience store) of the year.

In 2019, Suning.com's FMCG subsidiary has gained remarkable development in both supply chain establishment and shopping scenarios creation. In the just concluded 6/18 Shopping Festival, the order amount of FMCG category on Suning.com has increased 245%, which has been seen as an impressive progress. Furthermore, the acquisition of Carrefour China will integrate Carrefour's supermarket management experience and procurement capability with Suning.com's full-scenarios retailing model, multi-dimensional logistic delivery network and pioneering digitalized techniques, to advance Suning.com's 'online to offline' strategy in FMCG retailing and enhance the overall competiveness and profitability of the both parties.