"Alibaba Announces Sale Of Department Stores This Week...Focus on core business"

A deal to sell China's largest online shopping mall Alibaba's department store chain "Intime" will be announced this week, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post and SCMP reported.

Alibaba Group Holding has decided to sell its Intime Retail to Chinese clothing company "Yagual Fashion," SCMP said, citing multiple sources familiar with the matter.

A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he expected both sides to announce a sale and acquisition deal this week.Details of the

transaction were not known, and neither Alibaba nor Yagherall responded to requests for comment, the SCMP added.

The sale of InTime is part of Alibaba's restructuring effort to move away from offline retail and focus on core businesses such as e-commerce and cloud.

If the deal is finalized, Alibaba will sell Intime seven years after it acquired it in 2017 to strengthen offline.