Jack Ma-Backed Yunfeng to Buy MassMutual Unit for $1.7 Billion

A group led by Yunfeng Financial Group Ltd., the company backed by billionaire Jack Ma, agreed to buy an Asian unit from Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. to add offerings such as death benefits and annuities. The consortium, which includes Sina Corp., Giant Network Group Co., Ant Financial, a GIC Pte-managed entity and others, will pay HK$13 billion ($1.7 billion) for Hong Kong-based MassMutual Asia Ltd., the seller said Thursday in a statement. Yunfeng will own a 60 percent stake in MassMutual Asia, with the other investors holding the remaining interest. Yunfeng, which is known for catering to wealthier individuals, has been broadening its reach, creating a robo-adviser to help manage the wealth of regular Chinese and Hong Kong investors.

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  Alibaba to China Life Join Unicom's $11.7 Billion Stake Sale

  Bloomberg
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  MassMutual to sell Hong Kong business for $1.68 billion

  Reuters

Nothing Is Stopping Alibaba From the $500 Billion Mark

Shares of China-based e-commerce player Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA) are spiking notably higher Thursday, after the company announced another blockbuster earnings report. The Chinese Internet king reported earnings of $1.17 per share, which smashed Wall Street estimates of 93 cents per share, and said revenue was $7.4 billion, which beat estimates of $7.13 billion. Stocks Slide as Walmart Lets Most People Down, but Alibaba Gives a Lift Alibaba's Biggest Businesses Are on Fire The big drivers for this quarter were a notable spike in mobile users and a jump in paid cloud computing customers. Mobile monthly users hit 529 million in June, a large increase of 22 million sequentially. Alibaba's

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  Target Gets Closer to Its Mark

  Bloomberg
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  Wal-Mart tops Street 2Q forecasts

  Associated Press

Walmart Is Preparing Its Employees For the Day When Robots Take Over

Walmart Store Inc.'s (WMT) store of the future may appear to be scarily devoid of employees. In reality, humans will still work there, but expect to see more robots. In addition to Walmart starting to use 16-foot automated towers to distribute online orders, scan-and-go technology to replace cashiers and digital screens to answer customers' questions, it may eventually deploy robots to handle inventory. "One thing is for sure, employees will be in different roles," Greg Foran, president and CEO of Walmart, said in response to a question posed by TheStreet on Thursday, Aug. 17 during a media call. "Do I want to have a situation where in every Supercenter I've got a team of associates out in the