(Bloomberg) — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. registered one billion American depositary shares that hadn’t been registered before, suggesting SoftBank Group Corp. may intend to sell some of its shares.
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Japan’s SoftBank backed Alibaba before its initial public offering so a large portion of its holdings in the company are not registered as ADSs, Citigroup Inc. analysts including Alicia Yap wrote in a note. SoftBank owns 5.39 billion ordinary shares of Alibaba, equivalent to 673.76 million ADSs, or a 24.8% stake, according to Citi’s calculations.
Alibaba’s Hong Kong shares dropped as much as 4.6%, leading declines of the Hang Seng Index. SoftBank’s stock rose as much as 5.4% in Tokyo.
Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank has been under pressure in recent months as the value of many portfolio companies have slid with the technology downturn. SoftBank’s shares have…
