Alibaba’s gaming unit Lingxi Games is closing in on a sale to private equity firm Trustar Capital, with sources valuing the deal at around $1.5B. The talks, reported by Tech in Asia, would hand one of China’s largest internet companies an exit from a business that never quite matched its core ambitions.
Lingxi Games operates a portfolio of mobile titles and has been a steady but secondary part of Alibaba’s entertainment push. Selling it would let the company slim down as it concentrates spending on AI and cloud infrastructure, priorities that have dominated Alibaba’s strategy for the past year. Some reports put the price closer to $1.3B, suggesting the final number is still being negotiated.
For Trustar Capital, the deal fits a pattern of buying established assets from corporate sellers at a moment when Chinese tech giants are pruning non-core divisions. Gaming remains one of the few consumer sectors in China with predictable revenue, and a well-run mobile games studio can generate steady cash flows independent of the broader economy.
The acquisition would also test whether international buyers still see value in Chinese gaming IP amid tightening cross-border rules on data and content. Lingxi’s existing titles and live-service operations would come with the team that runs them, avoiding the regulatory friction of building from scratch.
Neither Alibaba nor Trustar has confirmed the talks. A deal at the reported price would rank among the larger gaming acquisitions out of China this year.
