Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group Holding, has made a strong bet on his own company by allocating more than 600 million Hong Kong dollars (65 million euros) to the purchase of shares of the Chinese e-commerce giant, according to sources close to the "South China Morning Post," owned by the platform itself.
According to one of these sources, these acquisitions reflect Ma's "strong confidence that Alibaba will achieve its goals in AI and will seize long-term growth opportunities."
Jack Ma's operations add to those recently made by Alibaba's president, Joe Tsai, and by the multinational's CEO, Eddie Wu Yongming, who together allocated 202 million Hong Kong dollars (22 million euros) to the purchase of Alibaba shares in the last two days, according to records from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
In detail, Tsai acquired shares for about 82 million Hong Kong dollars (9 million euros) on Tuesday, after another purchase of 80 million Hong Kong dollars (8.7 million euros) on Monday, the day on which Wu allocated around 40 million Hong Kong dollars (4.2 million euros) to strengthen his position in the company.
These purchases by Alibaba's leadership take place at the same time that the company has announced its plan to raise 80 billion Hong Kong dollars (8.745 million euros) through the issuance of 710 million new ordinary shares at a price of 112.70 Hong Kong dollars per share, with the aim of financing the development of its comprehensive AI capabilities, including the expansion and modernization of its artificial intelligence infrastructure.