Weekly News Wrap: Alibaba’s shares rise after Jack Ma’s reappearance; Arbitrators junk Future's plea on Reliance deal

And India-based Rebel Foods will roll out 2,000 outlets across Asia in a Foodpanda tie-up.

From CNBC

Alibaba's Hong Kong shares rallied as much as 9% on 20 October following reports that its founder Jack Ma traveled to Europe and after the release of a new chip. The stock pared some of those gains and closed 6.6% higher.

Hong Kong-based publication East Week reported that Ma had traveled to Spain over the weekend with his billionaire friends and business partners for a sailing vacation. The report cited a source that could not be named due to confidentiality considerations.

The South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba, later published an article reporting Ma was in Spain for an agriculture and technology study tour related to environmental issues.

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From Reuters

A Singapore arbitration panel has rejected Future Retail's plea to quash an order from last year that put its $3.4b deal with Reliance on hold, in a boost for its partner Amazon.com which is seeking to block the transaction.

Amazon has been locked in a tussle with Future and accuses it of breaking contracts when it sold its retail assets to Indian market leader Reliance last year. Future denies any wrongdoing.

After the Singapore arbitrator put the deal on hold in October 2020 in an interim decision, Future had appealed to revoke it. The panel has rejected that application, Future said in a statement to Indian stock exchanges on Friday.

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From Reuters

Online takeaway delivery firm Foodpanda is partnering with Indian virtual kitchen company Rebel Foods to roll out the latter’s virtual restaurant brands at 2,000 outlets across ten Asian countries, Foodpanda’s chief operating officer said.

“Foodpanda is Asia’s largest food delivery company... while Rebel Foods is the largest virtual brands operator in the world,” COO Pedram Assadi told Reuters. “This is the largest virtual food brand partnership of its kind.”

Under the deal, Foodpanda, which is owned by Berlin-based Delivery Hero, has recruited and trained hundreds of outlets to franchise the global restaurant brands created by Rebel Foods and offer their food on its platform.

Mumbai-based Rebel Foods, which offers multiple cloud kitchen brands across countries including India and the United Arab Emirates, raised $175m this month at a $1.4b valuation.

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