On February 19th local time, media reported that JD.com is considering acquiring British electronics retailer Curries. According to the report, JD.com has submitted documents to the London Stock Exchange, stating that "it is evaluating a possible but very preliminary transaction that may include a cash acquisition offer for all of Curries' issued share capital."
Affected by this news, JD's stock price rose 2.8% against the trend on Monday, while the Nasdaq market fell 0.82% on the same day.
JD is not the only bidder for Curries. Elliott Advisors, a US asset management company, previously proposed to acquire Curries for £ 700 million (approximately $882 million), but was rejected. The market news of JD's acquisition offer has directly boosted Curries' stock price on the London Stock Exchange, rising by over 38%. The company's latest market value is 727 million pounds (approximately 914 million US dollars).
The overseas market has long been regarded by Chinese enterprises as a source of new income growth, while the overseas market of domestic Internet giants has shown a standard trend, especially at the moment when cross-border e-commerce is booming, JD's news shows its determination to go overseas.
However, JD's Chinese e-commerce peers prefer to directly control overseas local e-commerce platforms, such as Alibaba's Southeast Asia e-commerce Lazada and Türkiye e-commerce Trendyol. In addition, TikTok officially completed the acquisition of Tokopedia, an e-commerce subsidiary of Indonesian technology giant GoTo, in 2024, spending $840 million to acquire a 75.01% stake in Tokopedia.
Looking at it now, JD's planned acquisition target, Curries, is more like an offline home appliance retailer. Curries has opened over 300 stores in the UK and has stores in eight countries, with over two-thirds of its sales coming from offline stores and over 15000 employees worldwide. Moreover, Curries' main business in household appliances and electronic products is exactly what JD is best at.
Compared to the internal business of JD going global, the speed of logistics going global has already surpassed that of e-commerce.
In September 2023, Xue Qun, the head of JD Logistics International Business Unit, officially proposed JD Logistics' "three-year plan" for overseas expansion at the UK logistics giant Evri China VIP Customer Day: to build a supply chain logistics network covering major countries around the world in the next three years, and to build a supply chain system including overseas warehouse networks, international transportation hubs, local distribution networks in overseas countries, and cross-border transportation networks.
JD Logistics has entered the accelerated construction period of overseas warehouses since 2020. Currently, it has nearly 90 overseas warehouses, bonded warehouses, and direct mail warehouses worldwide, with a total cross-border network storage area of over 900000 square meters. Relying on integrated supply chain solutions, JD Logistics has become an overseas logistics service provider for many well-known domestic and foreign enterprises such as Huawei, Honor, Midea, CATL, and Mindray Medical.
The acquisition offer for Curries this time gives JD.com a feeling of "making a comeback" when going global. At the beginning of 2023, due to poor business development, JD.com shut down its e-commerce services in Indonesia, Thailand and other places. If the acquisition of Curries is successful, JD.com will better develop its retail business in the UK and even Europe, and the expansion of e-commerce retail business will better coordinate with its international logistics.