Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Fangda Partners advised Alibaba Group Holding in its $4.6 billion investment in leading Chinese electronics retailer Suning Commerce Group, which was represented by Sullivan & Cromwell and King & Wood Mallesons.

Alibaba is paying 28.3 billion yuan ($4.56 billion) for newly issued Suning shares and will ultimately hold a 19.99 percent stake. Suning will in turn invest 14 billion yuan ($2.2 billion) to acquire 1.1 percent of Alibaba through the purchase of new shares.

A team led by Simpson Thacher’s Hong Kong partners Katie Sudol and Leiming Chen advised Alibaba while Sullivan & Cromwell’s Hong Kong partner Kay Ian Ng represented Suning.

Fangda’s partner Jonathan Zhou and King & Wood Mallesons Shanghai partner Cecilia Lou acted as the Chinese counsel for Alibaba and Suning respectively.

The e-commerce giant’s investment in the brick-and-mortar company comes at a time when many Chinese companies, including heavyweights like Baidu and Dalian Wanda, are starting to branch out from their traditional home turfs towards a new and lucrative business model of combining offline and online sectors.

“We are trying to build an integrated online-offline platform for both customers and merchants,” Alibaba Chief Executive Daniel Zhang said in a statement. “We don't change our strategy. We're still a platform company.”