Deals
Companies That Spent Billions on M&A Are Now Selling for Peanuts
- Alibaba, BlackBerry move to unwind major acquisitions
- Firms are now ‘trimming excess, dumping underperformers’
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Companies that spent billions on poorly timed acquisitions in recent years are now offloading those assets at knockdown prices.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. announced Tuesday it’s going to sell Chinese department-store chain Intime to a local apparel group for $1 billion. The price is around 30% of the company’s valuation when Alibaba bought it during the heady days of 2017. The internet giant, which has largely abandoned its acquisitive ways amid government pressure, said it will book a $1.3 billion loss on the transaction.