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GameStop Chairman Ryan Cohen buys stake in Alibaba (BABA), pushes for buybacks

The GameStop chairman has built a stake worth hundreds of millions USD in Alibaba and wants it to speed up share buybacks.

TJ Denzer

January 17, 2023 12:55 PM

Visual China Group / Getty Images

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Chinese company Alibaba has built up a strong business globally, focusing heavily on online shopping, e-commerce, search engines, cloud computing, and more. It’s done well enough to get Ryan Cohen’s attention, because it would seem that the Chairman of the Board at GameStop not only has a sizable investment in Alibaba, but he has also been pushing for the company to increase the speed and frequency of its share buybacks.

Details of Cohen’s position with Alibaba were recently shared by people familiar with the situation, as reported by Reuters. Reportedly, Cohen has built a stake in Alibaba worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He has also reportedly been in communication with Alibaba to express concerns. Cohen allegedly expressed that he felt Alibaba’s shares were undervalued and that the company could gain cashflow growth and double-digit sales growth. To that end, Cohen apparently told Alibaba executives that he believed the company’s share buyback program could be increased to $60 million.

Alibaba already has a share buyback program in place, but not at the rate and value Cohen allegedly suggested. In November 2022, the company increased its share buyback program value from $25 million to $40 million, extending the time frame of the program through March 2025.

Ryan Cohen has been an interesting person to watch in the current economic and stock climate. He made his name on pet retail start-up Chewy (CHWY) while also pursuing stakes in the likes of Apple (AAPL) and GameStop (GME), notably grabbing the reins of GameStop and helping push for its ongoing transformation as Chairman of its Board of Directors. As GameStop has sought to rework its business models and become profitable again, the stock has remained volatile, yet still well above its pre-2021 values.

With Cohen's background in e-commerce via Chewy and GameStop, his interest in Alibaba may be well worth keeping an eye on. Stay tuned for more updates and especially GME news right here at Shacknews.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.