Charlie Munger attends the annual Berkshire shareholders meeting in Omaha in 2019.
JOHANNES EISELE / AFP / Getty Images
Daily Journal , which Charlie Munger had served as chairman until recently, cut its investment in the Chinese online giant Alibaba Group Holding in half.
Daily Journal (ticker: DJCO) sold 302,060 Alibaba (BABA) American depositary receipts in the first quarter to reduce its investment to 300,000 ADRs, according to a form it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That is a reversal from the fourth quarter, when Daily Journal bought 300,000 Alibaba ADRs.
Munger, who relinquished the Daily Journal chairmanship on March 28, declined to comment on the sale of Alibaba stock. Munger, who is better known as the vice chairman of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway ( BRK. B), had been Daily Journal’s chairman since 1977, providing investing expertise to the company.
He remains a director of Daily Journal, which publishes newspapers and websites covering California and Arizona, and offers information services. it also owns large amounts of stock, with a portfolio valued at $212.6 million as of March 31.
Alibaba stock hasn’t fared well since Daily Journal disclosed an Alibaba stake a year ago. As of March 31, 2021, its 165,320 Alibaba ADRs were valued at $37,483,000, or $226.73 each.
That April, Alibaba ADRs rose after news that it had agreed to pay a hefty fine raised expectations that it had put regulatory pressures behind it. Soon after, though, the ADRs went on a long slide as Alibaba contended with a slowing Chinese economy, supply-chain woes, and more uncertainty from regulators.
Daily Journal continued buying more Alibaba ADRs in the third and fourth quarters of 2021. At the end of the first quarter of 2022, Alibaba ADRs were at $108.80—meaning the original 165,320 ADRs Daily Journal had purchased, if it still owned them, had dropped more than half in value to a bit less than $18 million in one year.
Since the end of the first quarter, Alibaba ADRs have continued to slide. In Monday trading, they stood at $102.80, down 5.5% from the end of March.
Daily Journal didn’t change any other holdings in the first quarter. It continued to own 2.3 million shares of Bank of America (BAC), and 1.6 million shares of Wells Fargo (WFC).
Write to Ed Lin at [email protected]
