Price heads back toward IPO level as investors fret over slower growth
Alibaba Group Holding's stock price almost fell below the offering price set in the largest IPO in history as slow growth in its earnings rattled investors last week, said analysts.
Shares of the NYSE-listed Alibaba closed down $2.14 at $68.18 on Friday, leaving the stock just pennies above its 2014 IPO price of $68.
The fall in Alibaba's stock came amid a plunge in the overall US stock market. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 530.9 points on Friday, concluding its worst week since 2011.
Alibaba's arch-rival Baidu Inc slid by 2.85 percent to $152.9 on the NASDAQ. High-profile US tech company Twitter Inc fell below its 2013 IPO price on Thursday.
"The economic slowdown around the world, especially in China, worries global investors," Lu Zhenwang, founder of Shanghai Wanqing Commerce Consulting, told the Global Times on Sunday.
In addition, investors have been bracing for the US Federal Reserve's planned move to raise its benchmark interest rate in September. The Fed, however, has been sending mixed signals that have added uncertainty to the market, reports said.
"Besides the macroeconomic factors, Alibaba's share slide is taking place because investors cannot see fast growth in either its core e-commerce business or fledgling operations," said Lu.
The company's report for the quarter ended June 30 showed that its total revenue reached $3.27 billion, up 28 percent year-on-year, which was much slower than the yearly growth rate of 45 percent in the three months through March.
While its net income fell 49 percent year-on-year over the quarter ended March 31, the figure increased 148 percent during the three months ended June 30 to $4.97 billion. That result included a disposal gain of $3.99 billion from the deconsolidation of its entertainment unit Alibaba Pictures.
In the latest results issued on August 12, the company said that its board has authorized a $4 billion share repurchase program over the next two years, a move analysts said aims to restore investors' confidence.
The group's founder Jack Ma Yun and vice chairman Cai Chongxin announced they would join the program late on August 17.
The wealth of Ma, who was ranked the third-richest Chinese person in the world by Shanghai-based Hurun Research Institute in a list issued on Wednesday, shrank by about $460 million overnight because of Alibaba's stock fall on Friday, according to media reports.
Tang Jia, a Beijing-based independent e-commerce expert, agreed with Lu, saying that if Alibaba cannot find a new and sustainable source of momentum, its revenue growth will further slow, which may result in continuous falls in its share price.
"Alibaba's upcoming big lockup expiration in the next month, when major investors such as some employees and Japan's Softbank can sell their holdings, may also drag down its share price," Tang told the Global Times on Sunday.
Alibaba has been actively expanding into sectors such as entertainment, car-hailing and cloud computing. It aims to move beyond e-commerce, where in China, as the latest data from Beijing-based market research firm iResearch showed, there were 3.48 trillion yuan ($544.6 billion) in transactions in the first quarter of 2015, down 10.1 percent from the previous quarter.
The company's e-commerce business confronts head-on competition not only from the fast-growing second-largest online retailer JD.com Inc, but also from tech giants including Baidu and Tencent Holdings in new emerging sectors such as online-to-offline (O2O) services and entertainment.
Lu noted that Alibaba may have gained an edge in the O2O segment after its acquisition of a stake in leading domestic home appliance chain operator Suning Commerce Group.
Analysts polled by the Wall Street Journal lowered their estimates of Alibaba's quarterly earnings during the three months ending in September to 56 cents per share from the previous 58 cents.
However, analysts still assign a "Buy" rating to the company's stock, according to the newspaper.
A report released by Moody's Investor Service on August 14 said that Alibaba's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization margin in the April-June period fell from 44 percent in the fiscal year ended on March 31 to 42 percent due to business consolidation and new business investments.
Moody's forecast the margin would remain stable at 35 percent to 40 percent in the next 12 to 18 months.
