Alibaba.com Ltd (阿里巴巴) yesterday suspended its shares from trading in Hong Kong as the company prepared a statement about a transaction involving its parent, which is raising about US$3 billion to buy back stock held by Yahoo Inc.
The statement, to address speculation about an unspecified deal involving the parent, may be “potentially price sensitive,” Alibaba.com said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, China’s biggest e-commerce company, owns more than 70 percent of Alibaba.com.
Parent Alibaba Group wants to finalize terms of a loan of about US$3 billion by the end of this week for a potential buyback of shares held by Yahoo, a person familiar with the matter said this week.
Yahoo said on Feb. 7 it was “devoting significant resources” to talks that might lead to the sale of its Asian assets, valued at more than US$10 billion.
“The suspension indicates the discussions on the transaction with Yahoo have reached a certain stage,” said Kelvin Ho (何景行), who rates Alibaba.com shares “hold” at Yuanta Securities (元大證券) in Hong Kong. “The likelihood of a deal has increased.”
Shares of Alibaba.com rose 5.5 percent in Hong Kong on Wednesday, the most since Nov. 22.
Yahoo is the biggest shareholder in closely held Alibaba Group, with a stake of about 40 percent, and sold its stake in Alibaba.com in 2009.
Yahoo this week added two new board members and said chairman Roy Bostock is among five directors who won’t stand for re-election this year.
The shakeup may prompt an increased effort by Yahoo to sell its Asian investments, which include stakes in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan Corp, Herman Leung, an analyst with Susquehanna International Group in San Francisco, has said.
The value of those assets is about US$11.5 billion, said Sameet Sinha, an analyst at B Riley & Co in San Francisco. The current board may aim to announce a deal to sell the assets before Yahoo’s annual shareholders’ meeting, he said.
Shares of Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo fell 0.3 percent to US$15.78 in New York on Wednesday.
Yahoo is considering cutting its stake in Alibaba Group to about 15 percent, two people briefed on the matter told Bloomberg News in December.
Bostock’s departure came a few weeks after co-founder Jerry Yang (楊致遠) severed ties with Yahoo, including leaving the boards of Yahoo Japan and Alibaba Group. Last month, Yahoo hired Scott Thompson as CEO to replace Carol Bartz, who was ousted in September.
Alibaba stepped up efforts to buy back the stake after the departure of Bartz, who had opposed a sale.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
RSS