(Yicai) May 16 -- Chinese private equity firm Hillhouse Capital sharply reduced its stakes in internet firms such as Alibaba Group Holding in the first quarter, and bought into some leading firms in the semiconductor sector for the first time.

HHLR Advisors, the company’s fund manager unit specializing in the US stock market, cut its holdings of American depositary shares in Alibaba from 1.2 million to 143,900 in the first quarter. This reduced the market capitalization of its stake by nearly 90 percent to USD10.4 million, it said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday.

HHLR also reduced its holdings in JD.Com by nearly 96 percent to just USD1.7 million by market capitalization in the first quarter, and cut its stake in Baidu by 75 percent to USD15.9 million.

However, it raised its stake in Shanghai-based e-commerce platform Pinduoduo by 17 percent to 11.8 million shares with market capitalization of USD1.4 billion, making it the company’s biggest stock.

Biomedicine maker BeiGene is HHLR’s second-biggest stock with a market capitalization of around USD809.6 million, followed by online real estate brokerage agency KE Holdings at USD400.7 million, Legend Biotech at USD335.7 million and Microsoft at USD291.2 million.

HHLR also bought 912,400 shares worth USD164.7 million in Advanced Micro Devices for the first time in the first quarter, making the US chip giant its sixth-largest stock. The company also bought into artificial intelligence chip leader Nvidia, chip foundry titan Taiwan Semiconductor, and Netherlands-based photolithography machine manufacturer ASML Holding for the first time.

The company has reduced its overall holdings in US-listed companies to USD4.6 billion from USD5 billion at the end of last year.

Editor: Tom Litting