ANN/THE STRAITS TIMES – Alibaba Group Holding shares jumped after The New York Times reported that founder Jack Ma has been buying up shares in the company.
Ma and Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai have bought a combined USD202 million of shares in recent months as the stock plunged, the newspaper reported on January 23, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.
The share purchases reflect Ma and Tsai’s belief that the business is undervalued after its stock fell sharply from its 2020 peak, the Times reported. Alibaba is valued at about USD175 billion.
Alibaba’s United States (US)-traded shares gained as much as 8.6 per cent in New York on January 23, the most intraday since last July.
They had declined 43 per cent over the past 12 months as Alibaba, once the most valuable company in China, has fallen behind Chinese rivals like Tencent Holdings and PDD Holdings.
Tsai’s Blue Pool Management family investment vehicle purchased almost two million of Alibaba’s US-traded shares in the fourth quarter, worth about USD152 million, according to a securities filing on January 23.
It was the first time Tsai’s fund has purchased Alibaba shares since at least the last quarter of 2017, according to a review of regulatory filings.
