Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba, has been buying up shares in Alibaba, as has Joe Tsai, his longtime business associate and the company’s chairman, according to people briefed on the transactions, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the purchases.
It is the latest twist for Alibaba, and it suggests that Ma and Tsai believe the business is undervalued after its stock has plummeted to a fraction of its 2020 peak.
Alibaba gains 6% in premarket trading.
Tsai has bought about $151 million worth of Alibaba’s U.S.-traded shares in the fourth quarter, via his Blue Pool Management family investment vehicle, a securities filing confirmed on Tuesday. Ma, who stepped down as the company’s executive chairman in 2019 but remains a major shareholder, bought $50 million worth of Hong Kong-traded stock in the quarter, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. (Both men already hold sizable amounts of Alibaba stock.)
The purchase sizes aren’t huge — Alibaba’s market capitalization is about $171 billion — but given who is buying, they are likely to be closely followed by investors and policymakers. Alibaba itself bought back $9.5 billion worth of stock last year, reducing its share count by over 3 percent.
Alibaba has had a tough time in recent years. The company and Ant were among the first to be hit by a broader crackdown on the tech industry that wiped out roughly $1.1 trillion in market capitalization from the sector. In 2020, Ant was forced to call off its potentially record-breaking I.P.O.
Last year, Alibaba canceled efforts to spin off its cloud business, a key part of the company’s ambitious plan to overhaul itself, leading to a sharp sell-off in its shares.
The stock purchases will probably bring attention back to Ma, a former English teacher who helped start Alibaba as an e-commerce platform. He had been celebrated in China as an icon of entrepreneurship. Ma, who hasn’t held a management role at Alibaba or Ant in years but remains a lifetime partner in the Alibaba Partnership, now largely focuses on Bill Gates-style philanthropy.
Tsai, on the other hand, has retained a high profile. A former corporate lawyer who also helped found Alibaba, he owns the N.B.A.’s Brooklyn Nets and the W.N.B.A.’s New York Liberty.
For those who track Ma, he was seen attending a Nets game in Paris this month and was seen sitting next to Tsai and Tsai’s wife, wearing — what else? — a Nets jersey and cap.