Robots carry goods at a warehouse in the Cainiao Future Park in Wuxi city, East China's Jiangsu province, Nov 8, 2018. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

Alibaba Group on Tuesday kicked off its restructuring with a plan to list its logistics arm Cainiao in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region that would make the unit the first to be separated since the Chinese mainland e-commerce giant announced its break-up six months ago.

Alibaba said on Tuesday it had submitted an application to spin off Cainiao Smart Logistics Network to the Hong Kong stock exchange, but that financial terms such as the size of the offering had not been finalized.

Alibaba, which holds a 69.54 percent stake in Cainiao, will continue to hold more than 50 percent of shares in Cainiao and it will remain a subsidiary of the company after the spin-off

However, Alibaba, which holds a 69.54 percent stake in Cainiao, will continue to hold more than 50 percent of shares in Cainiao and it will remain a subsidiary of the company after the spin-off, Alibaba added.

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Reuters reported in May that Cainiao aimed to raise between $1 billion and $2 billion. Since Alibaba co-founded Cainiao in 2013 with partners including department store owner Intime Group and some logistics firms, the unit has become a major logistics provider in its own right in the mainland, serving third-party customers as well as Alibaba.

US-listed shares of Alibaba pared early premarket trading losses following Tuesday's announcement and were down 0.4 percent at $86.86 by 1037 GMT.

Alibaba in late March announced its biggest restructuring in its 24-year history. It will adopt a holding company management model and split its business into six units, most of which will explore capital increases or market debuts to fund growth.

In the months since, the company has approved a process to start external financing for its international commerce arm and was also looking to list its cloud unit.

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The cloud unit, however, was hit earlier this month by the sudden departure of Daniel Zhang, who had initially left his roles as CEO and chairman of the group to concentrate his focus on the cloud business.