(Reuters) -MINISO will take up a 29.4% stake in Chinese supermarket operator Yonghui Superstores for 6.3 billion yuan ($893.05 million), it said on Monday, on track to becoming the largest single shareholder in the embattled firm.
China's business environment has become increasingly challenging amid a property-market slump and a financial slowdown, with Chinese consumers becoming more price-sensitive and turning their focus to overseas markets such as Japan, where the yen is weak.
Yonghui has logged three straight years of net losses, reflecting mounting costs for closing stores. The cumulative losses reached 8 billion yuan as of 2023.
MINISO, a global retailer of trendy lifestyle products, will buy the shares from units of Singapore-listed DFI Retail Group and Chinese e-commerce giant JD (NASDAQ:JD).com at 2.35 yuan per share, a 3.1% premium to Yonghui's closing price on Sept. 20.
DFI Retail, which was the top shareholder in Yonghui with its 21% stake, said in a separate statement that it had disposed of 1.91 billion Yonghui shares, netting it gross cash proceeds of around 4.50 billion yuan.
The deal "allows the company to focus a greater proportion of capital to support the growth of its subsidiary businesses across all of its markets," DFI Retail - part of the Hong Kong-headquartered conglomerate Jardine Matheson - said in a filing with the Singapore exchange.
MINISO plans to fund the acquisition through internal resources and external financing.
($1 = 7.0542 Chinese yuan renminbi)