(Yicai) Jan. 26 -- SoftBank Group has confirmed the Japanese venture capital firm trimmed its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding once again.

SoftBank’s unit Skybridge has sold a total of 512 million shares of Alibaba through prepaid forward contracts since October 2021 for JPY1.26 trillion (USD8.5 billion), the Tokyo-based parent company announced yesterday.

SoftBank is one of Alibaba’s earliest investors. When the Hangzhou-based firm went public in New York in 2014, SoftBank was its largest shareholder with a 34 percent stake. Since then, especially in the past two years, the Japanese company has been cutting its stake in Alibaba on a regular basis to reach 13.9 percent last July.

The statement released by SoftBank yesterday comes after Alibaba-backed media outlet South China Morning Post reported on Jan. 24 that Alibaba’s co-founders Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai have become the company’s largest stakeholders after they purchased new shares and SoftBank sold some of its, according to sources.

Ma, who resigned as chairman of Alibaba in 2019, hiked its stake in Alibaba to over 4.3 percent after buying USD50 million worth of shares in the fourth quarter of last year, SCMP noted, adding that Tsai, who was appointed Alibaba’s chairman last September, acquired USD150 million worth of Alibaba shares through its family office Blue Pool Capital. Meanwhile, SoftBank’s shareholding ratio has dropped below 0.5 percent.

The last time that Alibaba disclosed Ma’s shareholding ratio was in its earnings report released in July 2020, before he stepped down as the company’s director. Back then, Ma owned 4.8 percent of Alibaba’s total equity.

Alibaba [HKG: 9988] was trading down 2.1 percent at HKD71.80 (USD9.19) as of 11.00 a.m. in Hong Kong today. The firm’s New York-listed shares [NYSE: BABA] fell 1.8 percent to USD73.85 yesterday. The two stocks jumped over 7 percent on Jan. 23 and the following day, respectively. 

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione