Alibaba Sells Stake In EV Maker XPeng For $317 Million

(CTN News) – On March 25th, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, announced that it had raised $317 million through the sale of 33 million American-traded shares of XPeng Inc.

Alibaba subsidiary Taobao China Holding Ltd. priced American depositary shares at $9.60 apiece, according to a source who wishes to remain anonymous.

A representative of the Chinese electric vehicle maker said the stake in the company was marketed at $9.60 to $9.75 per ADR at the time, asking not to be identified because the information is not public.

The pricing of the ADRs represents a 2.9% discount from the Tuesday closing price of $9.89 per share of XPeng’s ADRs on the New York Stock Exchange. During the trading session in New York on Wednesday, the ADRs were trading at $9.50 each, which was a drop of nearly 4% after a slide of as much as 7.7% two days earlier.

The Alibaba representative who responded to a request for comment outside normal business hours in Asia failed to respond immediately. According to a filing made earlier Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission,

Alibaba’s XPeng unit said it intends to sell 33 million American depositary receipts for its shares.

As part of a pre-IPO investment in the company, the company bought US-traded shares in September 2019 to position itself for an IPO.

Alibaba purchased 25 million shares of XPeng in December. XPeng terminated its agreement on Tuesday with Taobao China in order to submit a nomination for the position of director to an Alibaba-selected individual, according to a separate filing the company made.

Alibaba and the EV maker plan to continue collaborating in a variety of areas including R&D and marketing services in the future, and the EV maker will explore a range of potential business collaborations in the future, according to the filing.

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