HONG KONG, March 8 (Reuters) - Lingxi Games, Alibaba

Group's ( BABA ) video games arm, has told staff its leadership

team will step down to make way for younger management,

according to an internal memo.

Since last year, Alibaba ( BABA ) has focused on promoting younger

people born after 1985 to management teams - a strategy it says

will help the tech giant maintain a startup mindset and prevent

it from getting stuck in old ways.

The policy is part of a sweeping restructuring that has seen

it adopt a holding company management model and split its

business into six main units.

Alibaba's ( BABA ) domestic e-commerce, cloud and local services

divisions have also seen changes in leadership in the past year.

Zhan Zhonghui, the head of the Lingxi Games, said in a

company-wide email seen by Reuters that he and two other

executives will step down by the end of March.

Zhou Bingshu, an experienced game producer, will take over.

Zhan is about 50 years of age and Zhou is in his mid-30s,

according to a source with knowledge of the matter who was not

authorised to speak to media and declined to be identified.

Alibaba ( BABA ) did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for

comment.

Lingxi Games is best known for the mobile game "Three

Kingdom Tactics" released in 2019 and produced by Zhou. The

strategy game, in which players compete to build empires, made

more than $1 billion in revenue in the first two years after its

release, according to market research firm SensorTower.

Zhan founded Guangzhou Ejoy in 2011 after working at NetEase

Inc ( NTES ) for more than a decade, where he had served as

chief operating officer. Ejoy was acquired by Alibaba ( BABA ) in 2017 at

a valuation of $1 billion and became Lingxi Games.