Walton Brown and eCargo Sign Joint Venture to Launch a Social Mobile Shopping Platform for China

HONG KONG, CHINA--(Marketwired - Jul 25, 2016) - Walton Brown, a company of The Lane Crawford Joyce Group, and eCargo Holdings Limited (ASX: ECG) ("ECG"), a China-based eCommerce enabler, today announce the formation of a new strategic joint venture. The new joint venture, WWE & Company Limited ("WWE"), is initially capitalized at RMB300 million. It will be led jointly by Thomson Cheng, present President of Walton Brown, and Christopher Lau, present CEO and Founder of ECG. Novel Colour Limited, a subsidiary of The Wharf (Holdings) Limited (HKSE: 0004) ("Wharf"), will co-invest and own 50 per cent of WWE.

The newly formed company, WWE, brings together respective partner's unparalleled expertise in the Greater China market, in particular Walton Brown, which is a well-established brand management company that forms part of The Lane Crawford Joyce Group; and eCargo, a leading logistics and technology company.

With China's mobile eCommerce market forecast to reach RMB7.8 trillion by 2020, accounting for 74 per cent of all online sales in China (The New China Playbook, The Boston Consulting Group), WWE will provide profitable opportunities for international brands to accelerate growth and a viable option for new brands to launch into China for the first time to capture new consumers, leveraging the government's new regulatory direction to facilitate cross-border transactions.

WWE will launch a social mobile, multi-brand, lifestyle eMarketplace -- MyMM.com -- in early 2017 offering the most exciting range of in-season fashion, beauty and lifestyle products from international brands exclusively to customers in China.

"This partnership is in line with our overall strategy of investing and advancing our mCommerce footprint in China by working together with luxury, premium and contemporary brands to fill the white space that currently exists in the online market," said Thomson Cheng, President, Walton Brown and Joint-CEO, WWE.

Christopher Lau, Chief Executive Officer and Founder, ECG and Joint-CEO, WWE, added, "We are delighted to be partnering with Wharf and Walton Brown, together we have a winning combination of the right capability mix required to be successful. We are assembling a fantastic team of experts in technology, retail and marketing to make MyMM.com one of the leading online destinations for Chinese customers."