Text size
Alibaba last month announced plans to split itself up, paving the way for an ownership shake-up.
Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images
Alibaba
stock rose Thursday following a report that technology investment group SoftBank moved to sell down most of its remaining stake in the company, in which it was an early investor. It’s yet another sign of a changing of the guard in Chinese tech.
SoftBank
(ticker: 9984.Japan) has sold about $7.2 billion worth of
Alibaba
(BABA) shares this year through prepaid forward contracts, the Financial Times reported, citing an analysis of regulatory filings. The sales will eventually reduce SoftBank’s stake in Alibaba—which stood at around 25% at the beginning of last year—to less than 4%, the report said, following on from a record $29 billion sale last year.
Alibaba stock advanced 1.8% in Thursday premarket trading.
The sprawling tech conglomerate, which has a core e-commerce business as well as interests spanning cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and digital media, announced plans last month to split itself into six units. The move, a bid to unlock shareholder value and improve competition, was a key sign of a sea change in the Chinese tech sector. A SoftBank exit would be yet another.
Write to Jack Denton at [email protected]
