Alibaba is going to take total control of Ele.me

(Reuters) – Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) announced Thursday that it would acquire the remaining shares of the online service, chinese delivery food Ele.to me it does not hold still.

The chinese giant of online commerce and its subsidiary, Ant Small & Micro Financial currently hold 43% of the capital of Ele.me and the contemplated transaction values the latter at $ 9.5 billion (7.7 billion euros), said Alibaba in a statement.

Ele.I had bought it back in August, the delivery service of Baidu, the leading search engine online chinese.

By taking control of the entire capital of Ele.to me, Alibaba is strengthening the food distribution line where it is already present with its delivery platform, Koubei and where it is in direct competition with Meituan Dianping, controlled by Tencent.

Ele.I will continue its activities under its own brand, said Alibaba while stating that some features in common with Koubei will be close together.

(Cate Cadell in Beijing and Ismail Shakil in bengaluru, Marc Joanny for French service)