A New York Times report claims Jack Ma, co-founder of the e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holdings (BABA), and the company’s chairperson, Joe Tsai, scooped up Alibaba shares worth millions during Q4 of 2023. Seemingly, recent BABA stock plummets fuelled the buying frenzy, and on Tuesday, 23 January, the company’s shares were up 7.85% at the final bell.
Alibaba co-founder and chair buys significant chunks of BABA shares
Reportedly, Ma, who had a $24.6bn net worth as of 23 January, forked out $50m for his company’s Hong Kong traded stock. The same report also indicated Tsai used his Blue Pool Management family enterprise to buy around $151m of Alibaba’s US-traded stock.
According to Reuters, the Chinese business magnate’s media management division, the Jack Ma Foundation, did not comment on the matter. In November 2023, reports aired that Ma’s family trust plans to list the company’s 10 million American depositary shares (ADS).
Currently, Alibaba is being restructured but has cancelled plans to make its cloud business an Alibaba spin-off. The organisation claimed US AI tech export prohibitions muddied the waters, causing ambiguity.
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In December 2023, the company indicated Eddie Wu, its group CEO, would focus on the local Taobao and Tmall Group segments. This announcement followed mere days after Alibaba announced Wu would captain the cloud division.
This intended spin-off formed part of a six-way, diversified divide, with individual segments handling the different niche markets. Competitors such as PDD Holdings’ Pinduoduo have been giving Alibaba, a long-time Chinese online shopping dominator, a run for its money of late.
