Affected by factors such as slowing industry growth and increasingly fierce competition, the express delivery industry is accelerating its consolidation. Following the merger of JD.com and Deppon Logistics, on January 15, SF Holding and J&T Express jointly announced a strategic cross-shareholding agreement, with an investment transaction amount of HK$8.3 billion.
According to the agreement, J&T Express will issue 822 million Class B shares to SF Holding at a price of HK$10.10 per share; SF Holding will issue 226 million H shares to J&T Express at a price of HK$36.74 per share.
</ … J&T Express's offering price was 14% lower than the previous trading day's price, while SF Holding's offering price was 1.5% higher than the previous trading day's closing price. The combination of a long-established logistics service provider dominating the mid-to-high-end market and a "dark horse" in the e-commerce parcel express delivery sector is seen by the market as a highly complementary "joint effort." Following the announcement, both companies' stock prices opened higher. By the close, SF Holding's A-shares and H-shares rose by 1.66% and 2.71% respectively, while J&T Express's stock price rose by 0.77%. It's worth noting that this is not the first time the two companies have joined forces. In 2023, J&T Express acquired SF's economy express delivery business, Fengwang Express, for 1.183 billion yuan. At that time, due to changes in the market environment for the franchise-based economy express delivery model, Fengwang Express was in its early development stage and continuously incurring losses. SF Holding chose to divest its economy express delivery business to eliminate competition and losses. J&T Express, the acquiring company, believes that SF Express's network is highly compatible with its own. This transaction enabled J&T Express, which had only recently entered the Chinese market, to address its shortcomings in last-mile delivery and increase its daily order volume to the 50 million level, laying the foundation for its successful listing on the capital market. J&T Express's Hong Kong IPO prospectus shows that SF Holding participated in J&T Express's Series D financing through Celestial Ocean Investments Limited, acquiring 1.54% of its shares before the IPO. At the time of the IPO, SF invested another US$30 million to subscribe for shares issued in J&T Express's IPO. As of the date of this cross-shareholding announcement, SF Holding held a total of 150 million Class B shares of J&T Express, representing approximately 1.67% of J&T Express's total issued shares (including treasury shares) as of the announcement date. After the transaction, SF Holding will hold 10.00% of J&T Express's shares, and J&T Express will hold 4.29% of SF Holding's shares.
Regarding this cross-shareholding, a representative from SF Holding’s securities department stated in an interview that it represents a further deepening of previous cooperation. According to an article published on SF Group’s official WeChat account, this cross-shareholding will help fully leverage the highly complementary strategic synergies between the two companies. SF will utilize its core resource advantages and mature operating system in cross-border first-leg and trunk lines, combined with J&T Express’s last-mile network and localized operational advantages in 13 countries worldwide, to jointly enhance the network coverage and product competitiveness of end-to-end cross-border logistics solutions. Meanwhile, in domestic business, the two companies have significant complementary and synergistic potential in network resources, customer base, product structure, and differentiation, which will help them jointly expand their service boundaries.
In fact, given the current slowdown in industry growth, the collaboration between SF Holding and J&T Express is almost inevitable.
According to official data released by the State Post Bureau, the national express delivery volume increased by 17.2% year-on-year from January to September 2025. However, after entering the peak season in the fourth quarter, the growth rate dropped to single digits for the first time in October 2025, reaching 7.9%, and further declined to 5.0% in November 2025, a significant drop compared to the average growth rate in the first half of the year. As an industry leader, SF Holding was also affected. In the third quarter of 2025, although SF Holding’s revenue maintained growth, its net profit attributable to the parent company was 2.57 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.5%. In October and November 2025, SF Holding’s express logistics business revenue increased by 13.68% and 9.88% year-on-year, respectively, but revenue per parcel declined by 9.97% and 8.49%, respectively. Meanwhile, J&T Express, despite its rapid development, also felt the chill of the slowdown in the Chinese market. Faced with the slowdown in domestic industry growth, both companies have turned their attention to the international market, which offers greater growth potential. In September 2021, SF Holding acquired over 50% of Kerry Logistics for HK$17.555 billion, further strengthening its presence in the Asian market. By the first half of 2025, SF Holding’s simplified customs declaration and clearance model for cross-border e-commerce and its international “air-to-air transshipment” model, implemented at its Ezhou freight hub, were successfully launched. Currently, supply chain and international business have become SF Holding’s second growth curve. As an international express logistics company, Southeast Asia has always been a crucial market for J&T Express. In recent years, J&T Express has also expanded into emerging markets such as the Middle East and South America. Currently, J&T Express’s network covers 13 countries worldwide. In this collaboration, both parties emphasized the need to “jointly build a more comprehensive, efficient, and resilient global integrated logistics network to better serve Chinese companies going global and the new landscape of global e-commerce logistics,” clearly demonstrating the determination of these two giants to “join forces and go global.” According to a senior executive at SF Holding, the strategic synergy between the two companies will be deepened in four areas, including exploring cooperation possibilities in domestic and international last-mile delivery resources, improving overall network coverage and operational efficiency, enhancing the consumer experience, and SF Holding’s board candidates will also join J&T Express’s board of directors.
