Chinese Web Firms Alibaba, Sina Form Alliance

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is forming a strategic alliance with Sina Corp., seeking to benefit from the social-media company’s broad user base for its Weibo microblogging service.

Alibaba, which operates online shopping sites Taobao and Tmall, has invested $586 million to take a stake of about 18 percent in the Twitter-like Weibo service, Sina said. Sina also has granted Alibaba an option to raise its stake in the unit to 30 percent.

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