Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. plans to buy a 5% stake in Yonghui Superstores Co. Ltd., the Chinese supermarket chain said in a Dec. 12 filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
Tencent intends to make the investment through its affiliate Linzhi Tencent Technology, which will take a 15% stake in Yonghui's supply chain and logistics subsidiary Yonghui Yunchuang Technology via a capital increase.
Details of the capital increase are still under discussion, the retailer said, and an official agreement is yet to be signed.
Trading of Yonghui's shares was halted Dec. 12 and is expected to resume before Dec. 18.
Tencent is the largest shareholder in Chinese e-commerce company JD.com Inc., which in 2015 invested about $700 million for a 10% holding in Yonghui.
This deal comes just weeks after JD's rival Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. announced plans to purchase a 36.16% stake in Chinese hypermarket operator Sun Art Retail Group Ltd. for $2.88 billion.
