Rocket Internet reportedly selling Zalora Vietnam, Thailand to Central Group
Rocket Internet reportedly selling Zalora Vietnam, Thailand to Central Group
Germany's Rocket Internet is reportedly selling yet another of its businesses in Southeast Asia, following a US$1 billion deal for a controlling holding of Lazada Group to China’s Alibaba Group in mid-April.
The German company this time is selling the businesses in Thailand and Vietnam of Zalora, its online fashion shopping platform, to giant Thai retailer Central Group, TechCrunch reported on Monday, citing multiple sources close to the deal.
Even so, both Central Group and Zalora declined to comment on the report, the tech newswire admitted.
TechCrunch said the deal, which sources say costs some $10 million for each country, has been reportedly “agreed on in principle,” and is now pending paperwork.
Zalora is present in ten Asia-Pacific nations, with some 1.4 million transactions conducted on an annual basis.
The fashion-focused e-commerce platform posted $234 million in 2015 revenue, up 78 percent from a year earlier, according to the latest financial report of Rocket Internet. Despite this, Zalora’s losses in 2015 rose 36 percent to $105 million.
TechCrunch quoted sources close to Zalora as saying that the company is selling the businesses in an effort to streamline its costs and move toward becoming profitable.
Once completed, the purchase of Zalora Thailand and Vietnam will enable Central Group, one of Southeast Asia’s largest retailers, to enter the e-commerce sector.
On the other hand, the online commerce game in Southeast Asia has been tough for Rocket Internet.
The company’s online retailer, Lazada, which is headquartered in Singapore and operates in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, ran out of cash before it received the $500 million investment from Alibaba in the middle of this month.
