Alibaba to Acquire Unisplendour Co. in Effort to Build up Cloud Computing Infrastructure

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and a Chinese state-owned company are considering bidding for a stake in Unisplendour Corporation Limited, a cloud computing infrastructure company, according to sources cited by Reuters. The stake could sell for up to $7.7 billion.

Unisplendour Co., Ltd. and Unigroup Guoxin Microelectronics Co., Ltd. are subsidiaries of Tsinghua Unigroup, a chip manufacturing enterprise. These two subsidiaries announced on the evening of July 9th that if Tsinghua Unigroup were to be reorganized, the reorganization scheme might impact the ownership structure.

According to sources, Tsinghua Unigroup, a chip company with debts of about $31 billion USD, will shortly have  more of its bonds coming due and is currently seeking to sell its 46.45% stake in Unisplendour Co., valued at about 40-50 billion RMB.

Alibaba and several state-backed companies are exploring bids for a stake in Unisplendour Co., bidding as high as 50 billion yuan.

Besides Alibaba, Wuxi Industry Development Group, Beijing Electronics Holding Co., Ltd. and Beijing Jianguang Asset Management Co. Ltd. are also interested in acquiring the company.

Alibaba will team up with a local state-owned company if it submits a binding offer by the deadline of July 20, two sources said. The sources declined to give the name of the potential partner.

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In a written response to Reuters, Unisplendour Co. said that, to mitigate its debt risk, it “has contacted several investors under the guidance of the Investment Attraction Task Force. In case of the judicial reorganization, Unisplendour Co. will put in place general arrangements for the introduction of strategic investors.”

None of the companies mentioned above reponded to requests for comments on the matter.