Auchan to leave Taiwan business

Auchan Retail is considering selling its stake in a group of RT-Mart-branded stores in Taiwan and is seeking $300 million to $400 million, people familiar with the matter said.

The French supermarket chain is working with an adviser to find a buyer for its 65% stake in the retail locations, the people said, asking not to be identified as the process is confidential. The sale kicked off last week, they said.

Deliberations are at an early stage and Auchan could decide to keep the interest, the people said. A representative for Auchan declined to comment.

The potential sale would complete Auchan’s exit from Asia, after selling its stake in Sun Art Retail Group Ltd. to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. in October in a deal worth about $3.6 billion. Sun Art operates so-called hypermarkets, large retail outlets that combine a department store and a supermarket, and convenience stores in China under the RT-Mart and Auchan brands.

Auchan owns 20 hypermarkets and two convenience stores in Taiwan, according to the 2020 annual report of Elo, formerly known as Auchan Holding. Auchan opened its first Taiwan store in 1997 and has 5,500 employees in its Auchan Retail Taiwan unit, which runs the RT-Mart-branded stores, its website shows.

U.S. actor and former World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. champion John Cena apologized for describing Taiwan as a country in a promotional video for his latest movie, saying sorry in Mandarin after the comments triggered a backlash in China.

Cena made the apology in a clip posted Tuesday on his official Weibo account, a Chinese social media platform like Twitter. He had earlier this month indicated that Taiwan was a country in a video promoting his film “Fast & Furious 9,” according to China’s state-run Global Times newspaper.

“I made a mistake. I must say now that, very very very importantly, I love and respect China and Chinese people,” Cena said in Chinese in the video, without elaborating further.

The apology video triggered further anger on Chinese social media, where users denounced Cena for not stating that Taiwan was part of China. Beijing argues that democratically run Taiwan is part of its territory, and has in recent years increased diplomatic pressure on the Taipei government and other nations that recognize its legitimacy.

The apology also drew flak in the U.S., where critics — including Republicans and conservative media — slammed the star for bowing to China. Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, described the move as “pathetic.”

Cena is the latest high-profile westerner to come under fire for publicly crossing China’s political lines, amid a boycott of some U.S. and Europe-based brands that had taken a stand against the treatment of Muslim Uyghurs in China’s far west Xinjiang region.

Hennes & Mauritz AB faced ire in recent months after a statement it made expressing concern over reports of forced labor in Xinjiang resurfaced. Its Chinese outlets disappeared from Apple and Baidu Maps searches, and some stores in smaller cities were closed by landlords. The company’s name and products can no longer be found on major Chinese e-commerce platforms including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Taobao and Tmall. Online sales of Adidas AG and Nike Inc. also plunged in the country in April after their comments on the Xinjiang issue drew them into the boycott.