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Update | Alibaba, SoftBank eye new joint investments

Alibaba Executive Vice-Chairman Joseph Tsai says the companies will continue to collaborate, jointly invest in new ventures

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The headquarters of Alibaba Group in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China. Photo: EPA, Long Wei.

Alibaba Group plans to pursue promising new investments alongside its largest investor, SoftBank Group Corp, after the Japanese conglomerate sold US$8.9 billion worth of shares that it owned in the Chinese e-commerce giant.

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“We’re two different companies so ... strategically, we’re quite complementary rather than competitive,” Alibaba executive vice-chairman Joseph Tsai said in a conference call with analysts Thursday morning.

“We see a lot of ways to work together and jointly invest in some interesting opportunities around the world.”

Last month, Alibaba extended its cloud-computing service business in Japan through a new joint venture with the telecommunications subsidiary of SoftBank.

Tsai said Alibaba has also taken the lead in early-stage projects, like the time it helped SoftBank invest in the Chinese ride-hailing service that eventually became Didi Chuxing.

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His comments followed SoftBank’s announcement on the same day that its newly formed Mandatory Exchangeable Trust successfully made an aggregate private placement of US$5.5 billion in securities exchangeable into Alibaba shares in three years to unnamed “qualified institutional buyers”.

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