Starbucks Corp said on Monday it is forming a joint venture with Chinese investment firm Boyu Capital (博裕資本) to operate Starbucks stores in China.
Under the agreement, Boyu will acquire a 60 percent interest in Starbucks’ retail operations in China, which is valued at US$4 billion. Starbucks will retain a 40 percent interest in the joint venture and will own and license the Starbucks brand.
Starbucks said its business in China will have a total value of more than US$13 billion, including the proceeds from the sale of the controlling interest to Boyu, the value of its 40 percent stake and the value of its royalties.
Photo: Hector Retamal, AFP
Starbucks entered China almost 30 years ago, and has been credited with growing coffee culture in the country. China is Starbucks’ second-largest market outside the US, with 8,000 locations.
But in recent years, the Seattle coffee giant has struggled in China with cheap, fast-growing Chinese start-ups like Luckin Coffee Inc (瑞幸咖啡). Starbucks’ same-store sales in China have fallen in both of its last two fiscal years.
As a result, Starbucks has been looking for a partner to help it grow its business in China, particularly in smaller cities. In July, Starbucks chairman and CEO Brian Niccol said the company was evaluating around 20 offers for a stake in the company.
Niccol said on Monday that Boyu shares Starbucks’ commitment to providing a great experience for both customers and employees. It will also help Starbucks achieve its goal of growing to 20,000 stores in China over time, Niccol said.
“Boyu’s deep local knowledge and expertise will help accelerate our growth in China, especially as we expand into smaller cities and new regions,” Niccol said in a statement.
Boyu Capital partner Alex Wong (黃宇錚) said Starbucks has built a deep connection with Chinese consumers over nearly three decades.
“This partnership reflects our shared belief in the enduring strength of that brand and the opportunity to bring even greater innovation and local relevance to customers across China,” Wong said in a statement.
Starbucks’ China headquarters will remain in Shanghai. Boyu Capital, which was founded in 2011, has offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing.
The companies said they expect to finalize the deal in the second quarter of Starbucks’ 2026 fiscal year. Starbucks’ 2026 fiscal year began on Sept. 29.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
It is challenging to build infrastructure in much of Europe. Constrained budgets and polarized politics tend to undermine long-term projects, forcing officials to react to emergencies rather than plan for the future. Not in Austria. Today, the country is to officially open its Koralmbahn tunnel, the 5.9 billion euro (US$6.9 billion) centerpiece of a groundbreaking new railway that will eventually run from Poland’s Baltic coast to the Adriatic Sea, transforming travel within Austria and positioning the Alpine nation at the forefront of logistics in Europe. “It is Austria’s biggest socio-economic experiment in over a century,” said Eric Kirschner, an economist at Graz-based Joanneum
BUBBLE? Only a handful of companies are seeing rapid revenue growth and higher valuations, and it is not enough to call the AI trend a transformation, an analyst said Artificial intelligence (AI) is entering a more challenging phase next year as companies move beyond experimentation and begin demanding clear financial returns from a technology that has delivered big gains to only a small group of early adopters, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Taiwan said yesterday. Most organizations have been able to justify AI investments through cost recovery or modest efficiency gains, but few have achieved meaningful revenue growth or long-term competitive advantage, the consultancy said in its 2026 AI Business Predictions report. This growing performance gap is forcing executives to reconsider how AI is deployed across their organizations, it said. “Many companies
RSS