Chinese e-commerce company JD.com has bid 2.2 billion euros for German Ceconomy, the company behind MediaMarkt and Saturn. The two companies reached an agreement on that bid on Wednesday evening.
Earlier this month, there were already rumors about advanced talks about a bid and a possible takeover. That bid was made on Wednesday evening.
The German Ceconomy is now more than a third in Chinese hands. According to Het Financieele Dagblad, the agreement is an important step towards the complete takeover of Ceconomy by JD.com.
The board of directors supports the bid, Ceconomy said in a statement. The founding family and the main investors in the German company also say that JD.com is a “financially strong and reliable partner”. The investment company of the Kellerhals family, the founders of MediaMarkt, remain the major shareholders of Ceconomy.
Ceconomy has more than a thousand European stores of MediaMarkt and Saturn. In the Netherlands, there are fifty MediaMarkt stores. JD.com is one of the largest online stores in China and may be looking for foreign acquisitions because demand for products in the Chinese market is declining.
In a message to investors in Ceconomy, the German company promises that there will be no mass layoffs at JD.com in the next three years. Ceconomy’s headquarters will also remain in Düsseldorf.