The magic words for Alibaba.com investors are “going private”; the company’s parent group has just offered to buy out shareholders at the initial offering price four years ago. They should take it.
Alibaba Group’s rationale for making an offer for the 27 per cent it doesn’t own in its business-to-business website is that the site is changing direction (from chasing customer growth to selling extra services to them) which will affect earnings visibility. No kidding; it began the shift last year, since when profits, although considerable, have undershot expectations in the latest two quarters, in part because a very necessary clampdown on fraud has cost the company paid-up users to whom it can sell new services.
Trapped investors (the shares have been suspended for nearly two weeks pending this news) are being offered a 45 per cent premium. This is not allowing them to “realise returns” as Alibaba claims; factor in inflation and initial owners are down 13 per cent. And there is the opportunity cost; the shares have almost halved in the past year, underperforming the Hang Seng by almost two-fifths and Bloomberg’s internet stocks index by more than a third.