HONG KONG – Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma is “very positive” about the company and will continue to hold its shares, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Nov 17, citing a communique from his office.

The comments from Mr Ma’s office come a day after a regulatory filing showed that his family trust was set to sell 10 million American depository shares of Alibaba Group Holdings, for about US$871 million (S$1.17 billion).

The phased sale is part of a longstanding “preset conditional plan to do a partial sell-down for the future” that was adopted in August, but “not a single share has been sold”, the publication quoted Mr Ma’s office as saying.

“We believe the current stock price is below its fair value.”

Alibaba did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The sale will be on Nov 21 by JSP Investment and JC Properties, funds that are part of Mr Ma’s family trust.

The share sale announcement, together with Alibaba’s Thursday statement about scrapping plans to list its cloud unit in the light of US chip import curbs, dragged the company’s Hong Kong shares down nearly 10 per cent on Friday.

Mr Ma stepped down as Alibaba chairman in 2019 but remains a major shareholder through his family trust.

The SCMP is owned by Alibaba. REUTERS