Alibaba gobbles up stake in China's Walmart
Alibaba has been bolstering its presence in traditional retail over the past couple of years. Its Hema groceries brand combines elements of online and offline shopping. Alibaba's appetite for grocery stores shows no signs of letting up. The Chinese e-commerce giant said it would pay $2.9 billion for a 36% stake in Sun Art Retail Group (SURRY), widely considered China's answer to Walmart (WMT). Sun Art Retail runs nearly 450 hypermarkets across China under its Auchan and RT-Mart brands. The investment is being made via Alibaba's popular online shopping platform Taobao. The strategy is part of the company's efforts to capture a big slice of China's online food market, which is expected to be worth $180 billion by 2020, according to research firm IGD. China's overall grocery market is valued at more than $660 billion, DBS data shows. Earlier this year, Alibaba spent $2.6 billion to snap up Intime Retail, which operates 29 department stores...