Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group is in talks to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Zhaopin, one of China’s largest job sites, people familiar with the matter said. Alibaba, whose online marketplace serves as a platform for millions of Chinese businesses, also operates China’s largest cloud computing services platform.
The potential new investment could lead to a collaboration combining the Chinese internet technology giant with Zhaopin’s own data in the jobs space, one of the people said.
Zhaopin is largely owned by Australian online jobs classifieds company Seek, while its other shareholders are Hillhouse Capital Management and FountainVest Partners.
Hillhouse is considering selling its existing stake, one of the people said. Alibaba is currently seeking a significant minority stake that would make it one of Zhaopin’s largest shareholders, though talks remain fluid and may not necessarily lead to a deal, the people said. Aside from Alibaba, other potential investors are also looking to invest in Zhaopin while Alibaba officials declined to comment.
The talks come as China continues to rebound strongly from Covid-19 even as other countries struggle to reopen economies battered by the virus.
Founded in 1994, Zhaopin, whose name means “recruitment” in Chinese, started as an executive recruitment service and eventually became one of the largest job search sites in China. And in 2014, the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange — the same year Alibaba also went public in New York with a record-breaking $25 billion valuation, while Zhaopin went private in a deal that valued the company at more than $1 billion, according to media reports at the time.
In China, Zhaoping competes with other local job search and recruitment platforms such as 51job.com and Liepin. According to Zhaopin’s website, the company has 180 million users. Zhaopin’s revenue in the last fiscal year grew 16% to about $550 million, parent company Seek said in a statement last month.
For Alibaba, investing in a recruitment platform could create new job opportunities. While Alibaba operates shopping sites for consumers, the company generates its revenue primarily by selling advertising and other tech services to businesses — merchants and brands — that use its marketplaces. Alibaba is also expanding its enterprise software business such as the messaging and productivity app DingTalk for businesses.
