RIYADH: A consortium led by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, is close to acquiring semiconductor manufacturer Tsinghua Unigroup in a deal worth up to 50 billion yuan ($7.8 billion).
The Chinese central government is leaning towards the Alibaba-led offer given, according to people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The transaction is expected to be completed as soon as December, but negotiations are ongoing and details on timeline, deal size and a final buyer could still change, they said.
A successful deal could help avert one of China’s biggest potential corporate failures, while securing for Alibaba valuable chip know-how and a supply of semiconductors to fuel the country’s largest cloud computing platform.
The consortium, which includes funds backed by the Zhejiang government, is edging out several competitors for Unigroup.
Any deal would likely include conditions for restructuring Unigroup’s roughly 100 billion yuan-plus of domestic and external debt.
Alibaba representatives had no comment, and a Unigroup spokesman did not respond to requests for comment, Bloomberg said.
