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Alibaba fell after it announced a roughly $10.2 billion equity raise to fund more AI investment. The company is issuing 710 million new shares at HK$112.70, an 8.4% discount to the previous close. Shareholders will see their stakes diluted by roughly 3.6%, so the negative reaction was understandable. I bought (BABA) after the fall. What interested me was not simply that the shares were lower. A lower price by itself has never been enough for me. What changed was the combination of the price, the capital raise, and what management did almost immediately afterward.
Chairman Joseph Tsai bought about $10.3 million of stock and CEO Eddie Wu bought roughly $5 million, both at prices very close to where the new shares were issued. These appear to be their first meaningfully reported open-market purchases. That caught my attention. Alibaba has just asked outside shareholders to accept dilution so it can spend more heavily on AI. The two people closest to that decision then used their money to buy the shares created by the market's discomfort with it. Corporate capital allocation tells you what management thinks should happen with the company's money. Insider buying tells you what management is prepared to do with its own. I prefer the second signal.
