Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, announced that the company intends to increase the size of its share buyback program from $15 to $25 billion for a 2-year period until March 2024. After this statement, Alibaba's Hong Kong-listed shares rose by more than 11%. The group of companies also announced a personnel reshuffle: the executive director of the PAG investment group with headquarters in Hong Kong will replace the CEO of Ericsson on the board of directors and become an independent director. Even earlier, the company faced a number of problems, including macroeconomic indicators and the ongoing tightening of regulatory rules by the Chinese government. In the end, this led to the fact that last year the authorities imposed an antitrust fine of $2.8 billion on the company. Overall, Alibaba shares have lost about two-thirds of their value since reaching an all-time high in October 2020. To date, the company has repurchased about 56.2 million of its U.S. shares worth about $9.2 billion as part of a previously announced buyback program. This share repurchase scheme will be in effect for 2 years until March 2024. «Alibaba's share price does not adequately reflect the value of the company, given our sound financial position and expansion plans,» said Toby Xu, the company's deputy chief financial officer.
