Real and unreal collide frequently in Chinese markets. On Monday, shares in Hong Kong-listed Chinese department store and mall operator Intime Retail rose as much as one quarter when it said that Daniel Zhang, the new chief executive of Alibaba, will become its chairman. The stock closed up a fifth, taking the total return since March to over 260 per cent. Unreal.

The Intime-Alibaba connection goes back to March 2014. The ecommerce company invested over $600m in Intime’s shares and a convertible bond. Together, they could give Alibaba a 26 per cent stake in the mall operator. The two also set up a joint venture, owned 80 per cent by Alibaba and 20 per cent by Intime, to combine the former’s ecommerce nous with the latter’s physical infrastructure.

The deal may seem curious. Listed bricks and mortar retailers have been losing their appeal. Same-store sales growth at Intime has slowed from a peak of 23 per cent in 2011 to 3 per cent in 2014. Profits have stalled. Alibaba, meanwhile, has reaped double-digit growth on the top and bottom lines. The company’s latest numbers showed that it is also successfully navigating the shift from desktop to mobile sales. A tie-up with an old economy retailer looks like a very strange way to allocate capital.