What does Alibaba's full acquisition of Ele.me means US$9.5 billion

　　On the morning of April 2, Alibaba Group, Ant Financial Group and Ele.me jointly announced that Alibaba has signed an acquisition agreement and will jointly complete the full acquisition of Ele.me with Ant Financial for US$9.5 billion.

　　Alibaba Group CEO Zhang Yong sent an internal letter to welcome Ele.me to join the Alibaba family. "Just just now, Alibaba Group and Ele.me signed a wholly-owned acquisition agreement, and Ele.me officially became a member of Alibaba's big family."

　　Zhang Yong introduced the strategic significance of the wholly-owned acquisition of Ele.me to all Alibaba employees. He said in his employee letter: "As one of the most frequent applications of local life services, takeaway services are an important entry point for local life. Ele.me's leading takeaway services will work with word-of-mouth in-store services to expand a new local life service field for Alibaba's ecosystem and complete an important step from new retail to new consumption. At the same time, we can clearly see that the huge three-dimensional local instant delivery network formed by takeaway services will become a necessary commercial infrastructure in the vast new retail scenarios."

　　Zhang Yong emphasized that as an important force in Alibaba’s new retail, Ele.me will maintain an independent brand and operate independently. At the same time, "To ensure that Ele.me can quickly integrate, better leverage and accelerate development, we have made a series of organizational guarantees: after the delivery is completed, Ele.me founder and CEO Zhang Xuhao will serve as chairman and serve as special assistant to my new retail strategy. Wang Lei (Kunyang), who stepped down as CEO of Alibaba Health a few days ago, will serve as CEO of Ele.me after the delivery is completed."

　　"We look forward to the two working together to bring Ele.me to a new height." Zhang Yong said.