Alibaba Group Holding headquarters in Hangzhou, China.
Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
Shares in e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding were up 1.85% in the premarket Friday, on hopes of positive news coming from its annual general meeting, since it hasn’t had too much to celebrate lately.
Tension between the U.S. and China has been heightened in the past few months by Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on Chinese tech companies, wiping value off a raft of companies. Alibaba has suffered, along with many of China’s tech firms, over concerns about increased oversight from China’s authorities and delisting threats by U.S. regulators.
Shares in Alibaba (ticker: BABA) have tumbled 43.82% over the past 12 months, much worse than Tencent (TME), which fell 15.99%.
The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a temporarily ban on Chinese companies from raising money in the U.S., unless they detail their legal structures and provide full disclosure of risks of interference from Beijing, Reuters reported.
Alibaba was slated to start its shareholder gathering at its Hangzhou gathering at 7 p.m. China Standard Time (7 a.m. EDT).
In May, the Chinese internet behemoth was fined $2.8 billion by regulators in China due to an antimonopoly investigation. Investors concerned about the impact of the continuing crackdown from Beijing will want to hear news of any update at the annual meeting.
Write to Rupert Steiner at [email protected]
