Billionaire Alibaba co-founder Joseph Tsai selling 8% stake in retailer

Billionaires

Billionaire Alibaba executive vice chairman Joe Tsai plans to sell an 8% stake in the Chinese online retailer he cofounded, according to a recent Securities and Exchange Commission filing, as headwinds coming from Beijing and Washington loom over Alibaba.

Joe Tsai, co-founder of Alibaba Group. | Photo by studioEAST/Getty Images
Forbes Valuation

Tsai, best known in the U.S. as the owner of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, is worth US$8.3 billion, according to our latest calculations. Forbes most recently valued the Nets at US$3.5 billion, far past the US$2.35 billion he bought the team for in 2019.

A global pioneer in e-commerce, Alibaba’s US$25 billion initial public offering in 2014 was the largest debut in history at the time. Alibaba’s market capitalization soared to as high as $821 billion in late 2020, but shares of the firm have since tanked more than 70% as the Chinese government targeted Alibaba with antitrust legislation and a US$2.9 billion fine. And political headaches in the U.S. and China have continued to beleaguer Alibaba, with the company’s stock falling 13% the day after Chinese President Xi Jinping secured an unprecedented historic terms and an ongoing spat between Chinese and American regulators over New York-listed Chinese firms’ auditing practices led several of those companies to threaten to delist from American exchanges earlier this year.

This article was first published on forbes.com

Further Reading

Brooklyn Nets Owner Watches Warriors Win Title And Dreams Of Making $1 Billion (Forbes)

Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai is the face of NBA’s uneasy China relationship (ESPN)

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Forbes Staff
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