On February 7th, Alibaba Group announced its performance for the third quarter of the 2024 fiscal year. According to the financial report, Alibaba announced an increase of $25 billion in its share repurchase plan.
The validity period of the repurchase will be extended until the end of March 2027. After the scale increase, Alibaba still has a share repurchase quota of $35.3 billion in the next three fiscal years. Alibaba will report the latest share buybacks to investors at the end of each quarter, and the next update is expected to be released in early April.
In May 2019, Alibaba announced that it would repurchase $6 billion worth of stocks. In December 2020, Alibaba increased the total amount of its share repurchase plan from $6 billion to $10 billion. In August 2021, the share repurchase plan was increased from $10 billion to $15 billion. In March 2022, Alibaba announced that it would continue to expand its share buyback program to $25 billion. In November 2022, Alibaba announced an additional $15 billion in share buyback plans, expanding the total size of buybacks to $40 billion. This time, it is announced to expand the repurchase of 25 billion US dollars, and the total scale of Alibaba's repurchase has increased to 65 billion US dollars.
According to Alibaba's financial report, the validity period of the share repurchase plan after the scale increase has been extended until the end of March 2027. In the next three fiscal years, there is still a $35.3 billion share repurchase quota.
As of the quarter ended December 31, 2023, Alibaba repurchased 292.7 million shares of common stock (equivalent to 36.6 million American depositary shares) for $2.9 billion. In the natural year of 2023, a total of 8979 million shares of common stock (equivalent to 112.2 million American depositary shares) were repurchased for a total of $9.5 billion. In the natural year of 2023, after considering the issuance of shares under the employee stock ownership plan, Alibaba's share repurchase plan resulted in a net decrease of 3.3% in outstanding shares.
Previously, Alibaba Group founders Jack Ma and Chongxin Cai significantly increased their holdings in Alibaba stocks. Cai Chongxin's family fund increased its holdings of Alibaba stocks worth $150 million, and Jack Ma also made significant increases during the same period.