July 19, 2018 – Suning Sports, the sport unit of Chinese retailer Suning Holdings Group , has raised a Series A round of funding worth US$600 million led by premier investment bank--Goldman Sachs and strategic partner-- Alibaba Group Holdings as well as developer partner Evergrande Group, Yunfeng Capital, Sports Industrial Fund of Zhejiang Province and Jiangsu Province in addition to a series of Chinese banks including CCB International, Minsheng Bank International and ABC International. 

As the “Top One Player” in the sports industry, Suning Sports is engaged in four major sectors across the whole industry chain including sports media, Over the Top (OTT) service, sports retail, and sports training. When it comes to sports media, Suning has the copyright of most major sports events including CSL, AFC, the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, WWE, UFC and CVL etc. The group owns PP sports, the first sports media platform in China, and broadcasts more than 8000 separate sports events live annually armed with high quality content and best-in-class sports commentators in the industry for its viewers. Backed by the resourceful Suning Holdings Group, Suning Sports has diversified realizable channels such as sports retail and sports training.

As a legal counsel for Suning Sports, Jingtian & Gongcheng team had been engaged since the early stage of the internal restructuring of Suning in designing the restructuring plan, drafting the restructuring agreement and participating in restructuring-related conferences and negotiations. Later at the financing stage, the firm continued its comprehensive legal service in areas of making the deal structure, negotiating with Goldman Sachs, Alibaba and Evergrande, designing, drafting and reviewing the RMB investment strategy, facilitating the deal and assuring the compliance of the overseas IPO etc.