Starbucks has announced it will sell the majority stake in its Chinese business for $4bn to a Hong Kong-based private equity firm after years of losing market share to local competitors in China.Starbucks announced the sale on Monday, which will see the firm Boyu Capital take a 60 percent stake in its Chinese retail operations through a joint venture.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listBoyu Capital has offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore, and its cofounders include Alvin Jiang, the grandson of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, according to the Reuters news agency.The US coffee giant will retain a 40 percent interest in its China operations while maintaining its ownership of the company’s brand and intellectual property, the company said.The deal marks a “new chapter” in Starbucks’s 26-year-long history in China, the company said in a statement.It will also give Starbucks a much-needed injection of funding and logistical support as it tries to expand its business deeper into China, according to Jason Yu, the Shanghai-based managing director of CTR Market Research.Starbucks has 8,000 locations across China, but it aspires to open as many as 20,000 through its joint venture, the company said in a statement.“Starbucks used to be a pioneer in coffee in China, where it was probably the first coffee chain in many cities, but this is no longer the case as the local competition already outpaced Starbu …
