JD.com Inc, China’s second-largest e-commerce firm, came appointing Jason Hu as head of its strategic investment unit that is responsible of making in-country and overseas deals.
Hu previously served at Chinese equity form CDH Investments as managing director, joined JD.com in late July this year and now has been named as vice president with direct reporting to Jon Liao, company’s Chief Strategy Officer.
Since long, JD.com’s in-house deal team remained significantly small for years compared to that at bigger rivals like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and tech peer Tencent Holdings Ltd, and filling the newly created role will prove to be strengthening its investment arm.
To cope with the country’s slowing growth in broader e-commerce sector; JD.com is coming up diversifying its business by partnering with firms in other areas like offline stores and seeking improving its advertising and logistics capabilities, it also made investments in artificial intelligence.
Over the past five years, the Beijing-based e-commerce firm remained making about 50 investments locally as well internationally, according to the data from Refinitiv.
Investments in an apparel retailer Vipshop Holdings Ltd and Chinese luxury e-commerce platform Seecoo Holding Ltd are company’s major at-home investments while investment to get a minority stake in London-based retailer Farfetch Ltd sis JD.com’s high profile deal overseas.
Hu started his career with Bain & Company as a consultant and afterwards remained holding senior investment management positions at private equity firms Cathay Capital and CDH.
Hu was part of CDH’s investment deals with domestic companies including an online logistics network platform Yimidida and express courier services company Deppon Logistics Co Ltd as well as in company’s investment deal with Belle International, a Hong Kong-headquartered women’s shoe retailer with 22% of the domestic market share in China.
Appointment of Hu will further support the deeper investment portfolio and will provide the company with strategic leadership to keep on growing, a spokesman at JD.com said.
