(Yicai) May 30 -- China Citic Financial Asset Management, one of the country's big four bad debt managers, has granted to the unit providing cloud services to retail merchants of struggling Chinese online retailer Suning.Com CNY480 million (USD66.2 million).

Through a Citic Trust’s trust scheme, the Jiangsu province branch of Citic Financial will give Nanjing Suningjia E-Commerce the funds to accelerate its development in Chinese rural and township areas, optimize its existing supply chains, upgrade its retail empowerment platforms, support its daily operation, enhance franchisees’ operating efficiency, and repay existing debts, Suning.Com announced yesterday.

In the future, Citic Financial will consider converting some of its creditor's rights into equities, depending on the development progress of Suningjia, Nanjing-based Suning.Com added.

Founded in 2017, Suningjia mostly provides cloud services to small- and medium-sized retailers in rural and township areas through the franchising mode. As of March 31, it had a total of 10,756 franchise outlets, according to Suning.Com's latest earnings report.

Suning.Com has been in the red since 2020. Its net loss narrowed 4 percent to CNY96.9 million (USD13.4 million) in the first quarter of the year from a year earlier, but its revenue fell 21 percent to CNY12.6 billion (USD1.7 billion).

Last October, Citic Trust announced it would implement a difficulty-relieving project targeting Suning.Com with China Huarong Asset Management. The two state-owned firms would provide up to CNY5 billion (USD689.8 million) funds to Suning.Com in the following 10 years to help the company complete the restructuring of its liability and assets. Huarong later became Citic Financial. 

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione