Alibaba-affiliated capital has divested stakes in three listed companies within a single week.
On December 17, Huayi Brothers announced that its shareholder Alibaba Entrepreneurship Investment and its concerted party Jack Ma sold 29,526,820 shares via block trades, reducing their combined stake from 6.064215% to 4.999996%. Consequently, they are no longer 5%+ shareholders of Huayi Brothers.
The same day, ASR Microelectronics disclosed that Alibaba (China) Technology Co., Ltd. ("Alibaba Network") completed its divestment plan, offloading 12.549 million shares (3% of total equity) through block trades and centralized bidding at prices ranging between ¥73.42 and ¥99.46 per share, totaling ¥1.056 billion. Post-divestment, Alibaba Network’s stake fell to 12.4333%.
On December 16, Red Star Macalline reported that Taobao Holding and New Retail Fund collectively sold 41,646,600 H-shares (0.96% of total equity) via centralized bidding between December 12–16. Alibaba-linked Hangzhou Haoyue and its concerted parties saw their stake drop from 7.33% to 6.37%. By December 18, HKEX data showed Alibaba further reduced its holding to 5.71%.
Earlier, on December 10, Meinian Health disclosed that Hangzhou Haoyue and affiliate Hangzhou Xintou planned to sell up to 3% of shares via block trades and centralized bidding within three months.
Despite Alibaba’s two-year strategic shift toward core businesses—exiting non-core investments like Kuaigou Dache, Bilibili, Momo, NetEase Cloud Music, and YTO Express—its external asset disposals appear to have accelerated by late 2025.
A notable trend is Alibaba’s growing focus on AI investments. Tianyi Think Tank data shows AI’s share in Alibaba’s investment portfolio surged from 4% pre-2023 to 50% post-2023.
This year, Alibaba has actively invested in embodied AI. On December 4, Qiongche Intelligent Technology added Hangzhou Haoyue (an Alibaba entity) as a shareholder, increasing registered capital from ¥14.9 million to ¥16.16 million.
From Beijing Xingdong Epoch Technology in January to leading a funding round in Zibianliang in September, Alibaba has backed multiple embodied AI firms, including Dynamic Power Lab, Xingdong Epoch, Unitree Tech, and Lingxin Qiaoshou.
At September’s Yunqi Conference, Alibaba Group CEO and Alibaba Cloud Chairman Daniel Zhang projected that AI agents and robots could eventually outnumber humans in workplaces, highlighting embodied AI as a key future domain for Alibaba Cloud’s AI and computing applications.
Meanwhile, Alibaba continues ramping up investments in e-commerce and cloud infrastructure. Q3 financials revealed operating cash flow plummeted 68% YoY to ¥10.099 billion, with free cash flow turning to a net outflow of ¥21.84 billion (vs. ¥13.735 billion inflow in 2024), driven by food delivery competition and AI infrastructure spending.