Alibaba may have a new lease of life in 2024.
According to news reports, Alibaba founders Jack Ma and Joe Tsai began to significantly increase their holdings in Alibaba after reducing their holdings several times, investing up to $200 million.
Among them, Jack Ma increased his holdings by US$50 million, and his personal shareholding reached 4.3%, becoming the largest single shareholder of Alibaba.
Affected by the news of Jack Ma and Tsai Chongxin's increase in holdings, Alibaba's stock price jumped 5% in a day.
Taking advantage of the sharp rise in Alibaba's stock price, when Jack Ma and Tsai Chongxin significantly increased their stake in Alibaba, SoftBank, once the largest shareholder of Alibaba Group, continued to sell Alibaba shares.
According to the Financial Associated Press, Son has cut Alibaba's stake through remote contracts, from SoftBank's 26% stake in Alibaba at its peak to less than 0.5% of Alibaba today.
With the reduction of SoftBank's holdings and the recent increase in Ma Yun's holdings, SoftBank, which was once the largest shareholder of Alibaba, has been out, and Ma Yun has become the largest single shareholder of Alibaba, and Alibaba has also changed back from a company with a strong Japanese color to a Chinese company.
Alibaba and SoftBank have been working together for 20 years
In 1999, Masayoshi Son, the founder of SoftBank Corporation, was in the limelight, and in this year, he invested in Yahoo Inc., which became the world's most valuable Internet company, making tens of billions of dollars in profits from a single investment.
This year, Masayoshi Son, who tasted the sweetness of investing in the Internet and technology industries, began to cast a wide net and sprinkle money around the world with a huge amount of dollars in his pocket.
This year, Son met Ma Yun, and after a short exchange, Son was impressed by Ma Yun's charm, coupled with a short business investigation, Son's SoftBank Company directly invested 20 million US dollars in Ma Yun and won 30% of Alibaba's shares.
Since then, Alibaba, which has sufficient development funds, began to conquer the Chinese Internet and soon became one of China's leading Internet companies.
SoftBank's investment in Alibaba has paid off enormously, making it SoftBank's most successful investment since investing in Yahoo.
In the face of Alibaba's stock price rising by leaps and bounds, Son has unlimited expectations for it, and has rarely reduced his holdings of Alibaba's shares for more than ten years, and has always held more than 25% of Alibaba's shares steadily.
The two have been in the same boat for 20 years, and each has become a giant in the industry.
Alibaba is back to being a Chinese company
But there is no flower for a hundred days, and no matter how powerful the giant is, it will decline one day.
It is undeniable that SoftBank has indeed made many successful investments in the Internet and technology industries, such as Yahoo Inc. and Alibaba, both of which have made more than $10 billion in profits.
But Son's luck was not so good, and most of the investments made by SoftBank, which invested in tens of millions of companies, were not profitable.
As the Internet wave receded, SoftBank, a once-investment giant, became heavily indebted.
In order to cover the company's liabilities and avoid large losses for the company, SoftBank began to sell many high-quality stocks.
In just a few years, SoftBank has cashed out tens of billions of dollars from Alibaba.
SoftBank, which used to be the largest shareholder of Alibaba, has completely disappeared from Alibaba because of continuous cashing out and declining share of shares.
In recent years, Alibaba's stock price has been halved from its peak of US$800 billion and now it is less than US$200 billion.
Many investors, such as Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger, have suffered a lot from this.
However, this is obviously abnormal, although Alibaba's performance has not increased significantly in recent years, it is still one of the top companies in China.
Alibaba only has a market capitalization of just over $180 billion, which is obviously sorry for the company's financial report.
And with SoftBank, a spoiler who keeps selling and cashing out, and Jack Ma, the founder, has begun to return to increase his holdings of Alibaba's shares.
Alibaba, whose largest shareholder has become Jack Ma, is likely to rise again, even if the environment changes, Alibaba Group, which is also known as China's Internet duo with Tencent, will not be as half-dead as it is now, right?