Third International Retailer Leaves China

French retail group Auchan announced it will sell its Chinese subsidiary SunArt to China's e-commerce giant Alibaba for 3.5 billion dollars (3 bil euros) and withdraw from China. The deal concerns a chain of 484 hypermarkets and 150,000 employees. Auchan is one of the world's largest retailers. And the third major international supermarket chain that is set to leave the Chinese market. It follows the footsteps of French retailer Carrefour and Tesco from the UK. Auchan’s gradual withdrawal was already apparent last year when the group transferred the operational management of SunArt to its Taiwanese partner. A year earlier, Alibaba had already taken more than one third of SunArt’s share, both directly and indirectly, and became its second largest stakeholder. In a Tuesday press release, Auchan cited "the unique nature of the Chinese market" to explain its complete withdrawal from China, without detailing the reason.