Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma paused his plans to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of his shares after the company's stock plunged last week.
Is Ma Losing Confidence With Alibaba?
In a CNN report, two regulatory findings revealed that Ma has been planning to sell 10 million shares which cost around $871 million. However, he was not able to sell any of these shares after the company stock fell below his expectations.
Last Thursday, Alibaba's stock price reportedly decreased by 9% in New York and around 10% in Hong Kong by Friday. This slashes the company's market value by $20 billion.
Moreover, the entire year shares of Alibaba have been unimpressive with stocks falling more than 10%. For months, there have been rumors that Ma has already lost confidence in Alibaba but chief people officer Jane Jiang Fang refuted the speculations.
Alibaba's Future
The report also showed that the sales were supposed to take place on Tuesday via JC Properties and JSP Investments. These are entities directly linked to Ma and his foundation, based on the filings.
The unveiling of the share selling came on the same day that Alibaba reported its third-quarter earnings. During the conference, the company announced that it is halting the plans to spin off its cloud computing arm, citing the uncertainties brought by the control on chip exports by the US to China.
On the other hand, Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai stated that the still had "full confidence" in the company, as per the post seen by CNN. Meanwhile, Ma commented that despite his partial sell-down he still feels "very positive" about the company's goals.
Currently, Alibaba has been under major restructuring since March.
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