Wuhan Zhongshang, a retail company in China, acquired Easyhome New Retail, a home improvement retailer, for $5.65bn from Alibaba, a Chinese multinational conglomerate specializing in e-commerce, retail, Internet and technology. The deal will also allow the reverse initial public offering for Easyhome’s retail arm on the Shenzhen stock exchange. The retail unit runs a digital platform which allows customers to buy items and order services, and which is currently linked to 284 Easyhome stores. The platform was developed with the help of Alibaba, which bought 15% of the company in February for $865m.