The Chinese multi-industry company, Suning Appliance Group Co. just shut down a soccer club in its hometown of Jiangsu.
This incident is raising an alarming concern that the next asset for the indebted company could be its asset in Italy, FC Internazionale Milano SpA.
In order to ease the debt pressure, the appliance retailer said that state-owned Shenzhen International Holdings Ltd. and Shenzhen Kunpeng Equity Investment Management Co. are planning to purchase 8% and 15% of Suning.com.’s shares.
The sale expected to be worth a total of 14.8 billion yuan ($2.3 billion USD).
Suning acquired 70% of Inter in 2016 for 270 million euros ($306 million at the time).
According to Bloomberg, Suning said that the introduction of state-owned investors will help the company with its finances.
Analysts expect the company to divest more non-retail assets as it re-focuses on core retail business. This could include selling off its 70% (or some of it) stake in Inter.
The company declined to comment further on the stake sale.
