Chinese tech giants Alibaba and Tencent will be among new investors pouring a total of around $10 billion into mobile carrier China Unicom, part of efforts by Beijing to rejuvenate state behemoths with private cash. Four sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters that Alibaba and Tencent would invest in the Shanghai-listed unit of the telecoms group as part of the capital-raising effort. China Unicom plans to raise around 70 billion yuan ($10.25 billion) through the Shanghai unit, the sources said. That would mark the largest capital raising in Asia since the initial public offering of insurer AIA Group in 2010, according to Thomson Reuters data. About 50 billion yuan would be raised through new share issues, while China’s second-largest telecom carrier would also sell part of its stake in the Shanghai-listed unit, two of the sources said. The sources could not be identified as the negotiations are not public.
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