Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has advised Alibaba Group (Alibaba), China’s largest e-commerce company, on its US$170m joint investment with Yunfeng Capital into CITIC 21CN Co. (Stock Code: 241), a member company of CITIC Group.

Alibaba, through wholly owned Perfect Advance (Perfect Advance) Holding Ltd., has agreed to subscribe for 4.4 billion Citic 21CN shares at 30 Hong Kong cents each, taking a 54.3 percent stake in Citic 21CN. Yunfeng Capital will buy a 29.8 percent stake in Perfect Advance before the share sale is completed. The transaction is the foundation for a strategic partnership aimed at jointly driving development of a pharmaceutical product information platform.

The Freshfields team was led by corporate partners Teresa Ko and Edward Freeman, both based in Hong Kong and Christian Zeppezauer, corporate counsel, Shanghai.