Singaporean sovereign wealth funds GIC and Temasek Holdings will each buy US$500 million stakes in Chinese eCommerce giant Alibaba.

The shares are being sold by Japanese telecommunications company SoftBank Group which is selling down its Alibaba investment. The new deal values its sell-down at $8.9 billion over two days.

The deal is scheduled to close on June 10, leaving SoftBank with a 28 per cent stake in China’s largest eCommerce company.

SoftBank started in 1981 as a distributor of packaged software.