China

Warren Buffett Deputy’s Company Doubles Its Alibaba Stake

Daily Journal Corporation chairman and Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman Charlie Munger, right, with Warren Buffett at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder day in Omaha in 2019. Photo: Reuters

Daily Journal Corporation, a US publishing and technology company, has nearly doubled its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding.

The company raised its holding by 99.3% to 602,060 sponsored American Depository Shares as of December 31, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday, making the stake worth about $72 million as of January 4.

Daily Journal’s chair is Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s longtime business partner. Munger, 98, has long been bullish on China.

The vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway had previously praised the country’s crackdown on Jack Ma’s Ant Group, the fintech giant whose record $37 billion IPO was derailed by regulators in November 2020.

China’s technology giants have come under heavy regulatory pressures and are grappling with major fines, with Alibaba paying $2.75 billion for anti-monopoly violations.

Amid an onslaught of competition in the e-commerce space, a slowing economy and a regulatory crackdown, Alibaba’s US-listed shares had in 2021 lost more than 48% of their value.

On Tuesday, the shares pared losses and closed down 0.7% at $119.56.

Reuters with additional editing by George Russell

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George Russell

George Russell is a freelance writer and editor based in Hong Kong who has lived in Asia since 1996. His work has been published in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, New York Post, Variety, Forbes and the South China Morning Post.