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Tuniu sold $350 million of Class A ordinary
shares to JD.com at $5.33 each, with the remainder going mainly
to private equity funds, the pair said in a joint statement.
As part of the deal, JD.com, which has close to 100 million
active customer accounts, will hand over its travel site to be
exclusively operated by Tuniu. JD.com will forgo commission on
its Tuniu-operated site, but collect fees on flight and hotel
bookings made through Tuniu via other JD.com pages.
For JD.com, the partnership with one of China's leading travel
site could boost its fledgling and potentially lucrative travel
business.
Chinese outbound tourism is likely to reach $264 billion by 2019
from $164 billion last year, according to Bank of America.
Nasdaq-listed Tuniu, which specializes in selling packaged tours
and cruises, reported $570 million in 2014 revenue, up 81
percent from a year prior.
The company's share sale will value its American depository
notes at $16 each, or a 7.3 percent discount to the firm's
Thursday closing price of $17.26.
Tuniu previously received financing from JD.com in December,
when the e-commerce firm led a consortium that injected $148
million.
(Reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
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