Crackdown-hit Alibaba to divest 5% stake in Chinese language broadcaster

An funding arm of Chinese language e-commerce large Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, focused in a regulatory crackdown, will divest its total stake of 5.01% in broadcaster Mango Excellent Media Co Ltd, the media agency mentioned.

The sale comes lower than a 12 months after the funding in December final 12 months, as Chinese language authorities mount an anti-trust crackdown on giant tech corporations.

One main goal has been Alibaba, which confronted a positive of $2.75 billion over anti-competitive practices.

In Thursday’s submitting to the inventory trade, the media firm mentioned Alibaba’s funding arm would search a waiver from a one-year lockup to which it dedicated on the time of its funding.

Since then, shares of Mango Wonderful Media have fallen roughly 40%. The agency, primarily based in China‘s western province of Hunan, produces Web and tv content material moreover working a procuring division.

Alibaba didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Alibaba’s inventory value has fallen by almost half since final October, when authorities abruptly halted plans for its monetary affiliate, Ant Group, to go public.

Mango Wonderful Media is certainly one of a number of media-related investments funded by Alibaba, which is a serious shareholder in Weibo Corp, China’s social media equal of Twitter.

It additionally wholly owns the South China Morning Put up, Hong Kong’s prime English-language newspaper.

In July Reuters reported that Weibo was in talks to go non-public with the assistance of a Shanghai-based state-owned firm, in an effort to assist Alibaba divest. After the report, the agency’s chairman, Charles Chao, mentioned he had no such discussions.

Along with Weibo, Alibaba owns stakes in some small Chinese language on-line media and has its personal filmaking division, Alibaba Photos.