One of China’s most prominent homegrown chipmakers is up for sale. Media reports suggest tech giant Alibaba is the frontrunner to take over Tsinghua Unigroup, the debt-saddled semiconductor manufacturer that’s currently majority-owned by Tsinghua University, in a deal worth nearly $8 billion.
Buying Unigroup would be a significant win for Alibaba, which is reeling from a political crackdown over the past year. It would also provide a lifeline for a company once at the forefront of China’s national push to build a homegrown semiconductor industry.
How Unigroup landed in this position, despite backing from one of China’s most prestigious universities in an environment flush with subsidies, is a complicated question. This week, The Wire charts its rapid debt-fueled expansion, its many investments, and what a deal could mean for its future.
HERBAL ROOTS
Data: OECD (2019)
Unigroup’s origins in 1988 had little to do with chipmaking. Although affiliat
Subscribe or login to read the rest.
Subscribers get full access to:
- Exclusive longform investigative journalism, Q&As, news and analysis, and data on Chinese business elites and corporations. We publish China scoops you won't find anywhere else.
- A weekly curated reading list on China from David Barboza, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Shanghai correspondent for The New York Times.
- A daily roundup of China finance, business and economics headlines.
We offer discounts for groups, institutions and students. Go to our
Subscriptions page for details.