Investing.com -- Shares of Dada Nexus Ltd (NASDAQ:DADA) jumped after its majority shareholder, Chinese e-commerce giant JD (NASDAQ:JD).com, submitted a non-binding proposal to take the delivery company private.
Dada Nexus’s US-listed shares rocketed roughly 25% in premarket trading on Monday.
JD.com has offered to pay $2 per American depositary share, or 50 cents per ordinary share, for the shares it doesn’t already own. The offer represents a 42% premium to Friday’s closing price of $1.41 and values the company at approximately $520 million.
In September, JD.com disclosed a 63% stake in Dada Nexus after acquiring Walmart’s 9.3% interest in the company.
Dada Nexus announced that its board has established a special committee of three independent directors to assess the proposal. The committee intends to engage an independent financial adviser and legal counsel to support its review.
The company emphasized that its board has not made any decisions on JD.com’s proposal. There is no assurance that a formal offer will be made, an agreement will be reached, or the proposed transaction will be approved or completed.
In 2022, JD.com obtained all necessary regulatory approvals to invest in Dada Nexus. As part of that agreement, Dada planned to issue ordinary shares to JD.com in exchange for $546 million in cash and strategic resources.
A regulatory filing last year revealed that JD.com, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, acquired 87.48 million ordinary shares and 1.875 million ADSs of Dada Nexus from Global Pinnacle Corporation, a Walmart-owned entity.
This transaction allowed JD.com to purchase all of Walmart's (NYSE:WMT) shares in Dada Nexus, resulting in JD.com owning approximately 63.2% of the company’s total outstanding ordinary shares.