Alibaba is here. A Luxembourg subsidiary of Alibaba.com’s holding company in Singapore was incorporated on 18 December 2023 and officially registered with the LBR on 22 February 2024. It has been entrusted to three of the e-commerce giant’s executives:
—YingYing Chen, general counsel of Hong Kong-based Alibaba.com
—Peng Zhou, senior strategy advisor of the Alibaba Entertainment and Media division (Youku)
—Ze Zhu
What does this mean? The company has not responded to us at the time of publication, but it is known that the group embarked on a strategic shift in the middle of last year.
Alibaba already has a presence in several European countries. Roland Palmer, who was initially managing director for the UK, the Nordic countries and Benelux, handed over Benelux to the French managing directors--Michelle Lau and Paul de Billy--two years ago. And the group already has an indirect presence in Luxembourg, as it is the sole shareholder in Ant Financial, which set up the European hub for its payment solution, Alipay, in Luxembourg in 2014. It was only in 2019 that it obtained a Luxembourg licence to operate throughout Europe.
Alibaba’s structure as of 31 March 2023, as presented in the Chinese giant’s annual report at the end of July. Source: Alibaba Group annual report
After announcing structural changes in March 2023 at the time of the annual results, Alibaba CEO and group chair Daniel Zhang explained them to shareholders in mid-July:
“After 24 years, Alibaba is in the process of moving from a single company to a new ‘1+6+N’ governance model in which the major business groups and various companies have independent operations. In this equation, ‘1’ represents the holding company of Alibaba Group; ‘6’ refers to six major business groups (Cloud Intelligence Group, Taobao and Tmall Group, Local Services Group, Alibaba International Digital Commerce, Cainiao Smart Logistics Network Limited and Digital Media and Entertainment; and ‘N’ refers to various businesses such as Alibaba Health, Sun Art Retail and Freshippo. Each entity of the ‘6+N’ will establish its own board of directors that will provide oversight and support to the CEO of the company.”
Zhang stepped down in September, replaced as CEO by Eddie Yongming Wu and as chair of the board by Joe Tsai, both of whom are considered veterans of the company and, above all, close to founder Jack Ma. They are continuing the in-depth transformation of the company.
According to a study done by Alibaba, as many as 69% of British SMEs plan to find new suppliers in the coming year, a figure rising to 75% in France and 81% in Germany. The group is looking in particular to offer new solutions to European SMEs, and Europe--said the chair late last year--will be its top priority as it focuses on building local businesses and online platforms outside China.
“In the future, we’ll be focusing more on building local businesses. So you’ll see something we have in China called ‘TMall’ come to Europe, meaning that we’ll be serving local brands and local customers in local markets,” explained Michael Evans, president of Alibaba’s international digital commerce business, at a technology conference in Paris.
TMall should enable local products to be sold to local customers, as opposed to the current model under which orders are placed directly in Chinese warehouses and delivered to Europe.
This article in Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano.