Alibaba sells $10B of stock as chairman and CEO buy shares to signal confidence

Alibaba just pulled off the biggest follow-on share sale in Hong Kong’s history, raising HK$80 billion (roughly $10.2 billion) by issuing 710 million new ordinary shares. The price: HK$112.70 per share, offered primarily to non-US institutional investors over August 23-24. The market’s initial reaction was about as warm as you’d expect when a company floods the market with new stock. Shares dropped 8.5% in Hong Kong trading, the steepest single-session decline the company has seen since early 2025. But here’s what made the situation interesting: within hours of that drop, Alibaba Chairman Joseph Tsai and CEO Eddie Wu started buying. The two executives collectively picked up approximately 1.1 million shares worth around $15.3 million on August 24, essentially telling the market they believe the stock is underpriced at its post-dilution level. The insider purchases Tsai’s purchase was the larger of the two, totaling roughly 720,000 shares at an estimated cost of $10.3 million. Wu picked up about 350,000 shares for approximately $5 million. In US trading, the damage was more muted. Alibaba’s American depositary shares slipped between 0.7% and 2.4%, suggesting that much of the selling ...