Shares of Alibaba rose over 1 percent during early hours trading yesterday in New York with investor reaction mixed after a major shareholder said it would sell nearly $8 billion worth of shares in the e-commerce giant to reduce its own debt level.
Softbank's stake in Alibaba Group will drop to about 28 percent after the completion of the share sale from about 32.2 percent by the end of March, the Japanese Internet and telecommunications firm said.
Alibaba will buy back US$2 billion of its own shares with cash and a group of founders and executives will use their money to buy back another US$400 million from Softbank, said an e-mail statement yesterday.
"As SoftBank looks to strengthen its own balance sheet, Alibaba determined that it was the best use of our capital to reinvest in our own business (through the share buyback)," Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma said in a statement.
An analyst at investment banking firm Stifel, Scott Devitt, said that he maintained a "buy" rating on Alibaba after the Softbank sale, and added that this disposal of shares should not be seen as a loss of confidence from a major investor.
The two companies said they would keep their partnership. Last month, they unveiled a joint venture to launch cloud-computing services in Japan.
Masayoshi Son, founder and CEO of SoftBank, is one of the earliest investors in Alibaba more than 16 years ago. He will remain on Alibaba's board.
