A man passing the Alibaba Group logo in an office building in Beijing, China, on August 9, 2021. REUTERS / Tingshu Wang
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March 22 -Alibaba Group Holding Limited raised its share buyback program to $ 25 billion on Tuesday. This is the second increase in less than a year to support stocks that have been hit by concerns over slowing growth.
The announcement shows an increase from previous plans to repurchase $ 15 billion of shares and shows the largest share repurchase since it was published in 2014.
After the announcement, stock prices in Hong Kong (9988.HK) rose 4.5%.
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Alibaba said it had already repurchased about $ 9.2 billion in US-listed stock as of March 18, based on a program that was originally planned to last until the end of this year.
In December 2020, the company’s stock plummeted as the previous $ 10 billion buyback failed to alleviate concerns about co-founder Jack Ma’s e-commerce and regulatory crackdown on the financial empire.read more
Alibaba raised its buyback to $ 15 billion last August. (Https://bit.ly/36aOVsd)
The current program is valid for two years until March 2024.
Toby Shoe, Deputy Chief Financial Officer of Alibaba Group, said:
“Alibaba’s share price does not fairly reflect the value of the company given our strong financial position and expansion plans.”
Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed stock has lost nearly 57% of its value from the beginning of last year to March 21st.
The company has been under pressure since late 2020, when Ma publicly criticized China’s regulatory system.
Authorities subsequently suspended the planned IPO of Alibaba’s financial sector, Ant Group, and subsequently accused the company of a record $ 2.8 billion fine for anti-competitive behavior.
The latest repurchase plan is in the midst of a stock recovery over the past few days after China’s Deputy Prime Minister Liu He said Beijing will implement further measures to boost the economy and favorable policy measures for the capital markets. It is in.read more
Alibaba has also appointed Weijian Shan, executive chairman of investment group PAG, as an independent director of the board, and Borje Ekholm, CEO of Ericsson (ERICb.ST), will resign from Alibaba’s board on March 31. rice field.
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Report by Shubham Kalia in Bangalore and Josh Horwitz in Shanghai. Sherry Jacob-Edited by Phillips and Himani Sarkar
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