March 23, 2022: On Tuesday, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding said it upsized its share buyback program to $25 billion from $15 billion, the second time in the previous year.

Alibaba said it had already re-purchased regarding $9.2 billion of its U.S.-listed shares as of March 18 under its program, initially slated to last until this year.

The company’s shares had slumped in December 2020 after the then buyback amount of $10 billion failed to ease concerns regarding a regulatory crackdown on co-founder Jack Ma’s e-commerce and financial empire.    

Alibaba is raising its buyback to $15 billion the previous August. Alibaba said the current program will be effective for two years through March 2024 in its statement on Tuesday.

“The upsized share buyback underscores our confidence in Alibaba’s long-term, sustainable growth potential and value creation,” said Alibaba Group’s Deputy Chief Financial Officer Toby Xu.

“Alibaba’s stock price does not fairly reflect the company’s value given our robust financial health and expansion plans,” said Xu.

The company appointed Weijian Shan, the executive chairman of investment group PAG, as an independent director to its board. Borje Ekholm, the chief executive officer of Ericsson, will retire from Alibaba’s board on March 31.