China's largest e-commerce website Alibaba on Tuesday announced it had successfully acquired the entire assets of Yahoo! China and gained one billion US dollars of investment in the merger.

This is the largest merger-acquisition (M&A) deal in China's Internet business.

According to an agreement signed by Alibaba and Yahoo! China on Aug. 11, all of Yahoo! China's assets go to Alibaba, including its search technology, the website, its communication and advertising business, and 3721.com, a Chinese language search engine.

Meanwhile, the two companies will work together in an exclusive partnership to grow the "Yahoo!" brand in China.

"Teaming up with Yahoo! will allow us to deliver a range of e-commerce services to businesses and consumers in China," said Ma Yun, chief executive officer of Alibaba.

The new team will expand the Internet searching services to Chinese users, and create one of the largest Internet companies in China with a leading position in the key growth sectors of business-to-business e-commerce (B2B), consumer e-commerce (C2C), on-line payments, communications and searching.

The merger between the two Internet giants is expected to bring a new wave of tumult to China's rapidly changing Internet industry.

"The cooperation will enable Chinese enterprises to explore their business by taking advantage of B2B, C2C models and advanced search technology," Ma said.

Alibaba is China's leading e-commerce company, operating the world's largest online marketplaces for both international and China's domestic trade. It has China's most popular on-line payment system, AliPay. The Alibaba websites have more than 15 million registered users in 200 countries and regions.

(Xinhua News Agency October 27, 2005)