Financials Author：Yiru Qian Editor：Tao Ni Mar 23, 2022 12:23 AM (GMT+8)

The e-commerce giant is not satisfied with the slip in its stock performance

Alibaba

Alibaba Group (BABA:NYSE) announced that its board has authorized it to hike its share repurchase program by 66.7% to USD 25 billion on March 22, 2022.

This upsized share repurchase program will run for another two years until 2024.

Taking Alibaba’s latest market cap USD 280.8 billion as a baseline, this repurchase is equal to 8.9% of the total outstanding stock value, making it the largest ever share buyback for “Chinese concepts stocks.”

“It underscores our confidence in Alibaba’s long-term, sustainable growth potential and value creation,” said Alibaba Group’s Deputy Chief Financial Officer Toby Xu.

In fact, Alibaba has continuously ramped up its share buyback since the regulatory crackdown began in 2020. In May 2019, Alibaba announced a two-year buyback of USD 6 billion, then the board authorized a repurchase program of USD 10 billion worth of  American Deposit Receipts (ADRs) in December 28, 2020. In August 2021, it further expanded the scheme to USD 15 billion.

As of March 18 this year, the company has purchased 56.2 million American depositary shares (ADS) under a previously announced buyback program for CNY 9.2 billion.

Alibaba’s share price closed at USD 103.59 on Monday in New York Stock Exchange, down 66% from its all-time high. “The [current] stock price does not fairly reflect Alibaba’s value given our robust financial health and expansion plans,” said Xu.