Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom represented Chinese technology giants Tencent and JD.com, respectively, on their $863 million investment in apparel platform Vipshop, which turned to Latham & Watkins for advice.
Tencent will invest $604 million for a 7 percent stake, while JD.com, which already owns about 2.5 percent in Vipshop, will invest $259 million to increase its stake to 5.5 percent, the firms said.
The deal extends a recent push by Tencent into Alibaba’s home turf of retail, where the firm hopes to leverage its messaging service WeChat, which has nearly a billion users, and its online payment systems to drive shopping demand, according to Reuters.
Alibaba’s Tmall and Taobao platforms dominate online and it has invested over $10 billion in a push into brick-and-mortar stores. Tencent, which is Asia’s most valuable company with a market capitalization of $473 billion, is a major stakeholder in Alibaba’s e-commerce rival JD.com.
The Paul Weiss team was led by China practice managing partner Jeanette Chan and Tokyo partner Tong Yu, while Skadden’s China practice chief Julie Gao led the firm on the deal.
Hong Kong corporate partner Frank Sun represented Latham & Watkins.
