According to the New York Times, Yahoo, in a regulatory filing last week, accused Chinese Internet juggernaut Alibaba of selling its payment unit, Alipay, to a company owned by Ali Baba’s CEO, Jack Ma, without informing them. Because Yahoo is a partial owner of Alibaba, its stock tanked, to the tune of $2.7 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal, presumably out of fear its value was significantly lessened by the move.
Now, in a joint statement, Yahoo and the Alibaba Group have announced they are trying to reconcile.
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The statement is a grand total of one sentence long.
“Alibaba Group, and its major stockholders Yahoo! Inc. and Softbank Corporation, are engaged in and committed to productive negotiations to resolve the outstanding issues related to Alipay in a manner that serves the interests of all shareholders as soon as possible.”
Yahoo bought its stake in Alibaba in 2005 for $1 billion. Since then, Yahoo has arguably declined in prominence while Alibaba has advanced its fortunes considerably. The hope may be that with Yahoo being crowded at home, it can reverse its decline by leveraging the Asian market.
Yahoo currently owns 40% of the Chinese company, with a valuation of $10 billion.
Alibaba said the transfer of the unit was demanded by Chinese law. But Yahoo complained that it had not learned of the transfer until seven months after it was completed, an assertion that Alibaba denied.
China border fence photo by Joe Jones
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