The most interesting thing about the Alibaba data just disclosed by Yahoo is not so much the Chinese ecommerce giant’s apparent slowdown (name another big company where gross profit growth of 58 per cent would be considered a problem?) but how little public information is available. As a company planning to float with a likely market capitalisation north of $60bn, it will have to get used to disclosing far more data. Why not start now?
If ever there was a must-read company report, it would be this one. Since Alibaba.com, its business-to-business website, was taken private in 2012, all watchers have are Yahoo’s updates. The investor relations team at Japan’s Rakuten reports rising interest in its operations because it operates a similar online marketplace model. The skimpy balance sheet and income data Yahoo reports for Alibaba are better than nothing, but that is all that can be said.
The example to follow is Huawei, the privately owned Chinese telecoms equipment maker. Its financial reporting is far from complete and has not yet allayed US political fears that China spies through its networks. But it has helped anyone interested to understand the company better.