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Alibaba Buys $2 Billion in Own Stock From Softbank

Alibaba agreed to buy $2 billion of its own stock from SoftBank Group Corp. at $74 a share, as part of SoftBank’s effort to monetise $8.9 billion of its stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant.
Alibaba | Source: Shutterstock
By
  • Bloomberg

HANGZHOU, China — Alibaba Group Holding Inc. agreed to buy $2 billion of its own stock from SoftBank Group Corp. at $74 a share, part of SoftBank's effort to monetise $8.9 billion of its stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant.

In addition to Alibaba’s $2 billion purchase, SoftBank will sell $400 million in Alibaba shares to the Alibaba Partnership and $500 million each to two sovereign wealth funds in Singapore. All the sales are for $74 a share, Alibaba and SoftBank said Wednesday in separate statements.

SoftBank approached Alibaba six months ago to express interest in divesting part of its stake in the company, which it has held for 16 years. Timing the transaction was tricky because SoftBank chairman and chief executive officer Masayoshi Son sits on Alibaba’s board, SoftBank president Nikesh Arora said during a conference call.

When completed, the sales will reduce the size of SoftBank’s stake in Alibaba to about 28 percent from just more than 32 percent. SoftBank had previously announced the Alibaba share sales without the pricing.

By Spencer Soper; editors: Jilian Ward and Andrew Pollack.

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