Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group’s main business unit aims to delist from the Hong Kong stock market – but says the move is unrelated to an effort to buy Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) out of the company.
The parent group has proposed taking Alibaba.com private for HK$19.6 billion ($2.5 billion), so that it can focus on longer-term goals instead of satisfying investors in the short term.
Meanwhile, talks in which the parent group wants to buy Yahoo’s 43 percent stake in Alibaba Group, which Yahoo bought for $1 billion in 2005, have reached an impasse, AllthingsD reported last week.
“The privatisation is completely unrelated to any discussions that are presently taking place with Yahoo,” Alibaba.com chief finance officer Maggie Wu told investment analysts on Tuesday.
“The scheme will not be conditional on the possible transaction with Yahoo.”
Wu said the group has $1.8 billion in cash on its balance sheet and intends to finance the Alibaba.com privatisation through committed new financing and the existing spare cash.
Alibaba.com on Tuesday reported profit fell six percent to 385.9m yuan ($61.3m) from a year earlier in the three months to December 31, blaming it on economic slowdown especially in Europe and the U.S..