China’s Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma has shed some stake in the company from 6.4 per cent to 4.8 per cent, resulting in monetary gains totaling US $ 9.6 billion.
The move comes after the teacher-turned entrepreneur stepped down from his position as the company’s executive chairman in September last year to focus more on philanthropy.
The exact selling price of the divestment was not revealed by the company but the continuous outperforming of forecasts has helped stock prices rise as much as 40 per cent ever since Ma’s departure.
The earnings that beat all analysts’ expectations can also be credited to the sharp increase in online shopping after the onset of the pandemic.
Joseph Tai, Executive Vice Chairman at Alibaba also unloaded a portion of his stock reducing his stake in the company from 2.3 per cent to 1.6 per cent over the same period as Ma.
The offloaded shares were worth US $ 4.1 billion.
After Daniel Zhang took the reins of Alibaba, both Tai and Ma have become increasingly less involved with the regular operations of the company. Both have focused on donating millions of units of PPE to hospitals worldwide in an attempt to help fight COVID-19.