Alibaba seals deal for 10% of SingPost

Top Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has given cross-border business a strong push by announcing its plans to buy a stake in Singapore Post Ltd, a move that for the first time directly connects China's e-commerce system with overseas logistics.

The two sides announced on Wednesday that SingPost and Alibaba Investment Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Alibaba Group, have entered into an investment agreement under which Alibaba Investment will invest S $312.5 million ($249 million) to purchase 30 million existing ordinary shares and 190.096 million new ordinary shares, to allow Alibaba to take a 10.35 percent stake in SingPost upon completion.

Alibaba and the publicly traded SingPost also inked a memorandum of understanding to build an "international e-commerce logistics platform", aiming to seize an e-commerce opportunity in Southeast Asia's potentially huge market.