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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) remains engaged in several initiatives to unlock shareholder value, including its artificial intelligence maneuvers, as it battles intense domestic competition.
Alibaba Group’s media and entertainment division plans to invest approximately $640 million in promoting movies, television dramas, and creative events in Hong Kong over the next five years.
This announcement follows the unit’s significant sales increase, fueled by China’s robust box office performance, the Wall Street Journal reports. The stock is up over 2% Tuesday.
Also Read: Alibaba Amplifies AI Investment, Valuing MiniMax Over $2.5B in Latest Financing Round
The investment, amounting to 5 billion Hong Kong dollars, aims to rejuvenate Hong Kong’s creative industries, focusing on talent development within the Asian financial hub. The initiative will be led by Alibaba Pictures and the long-video platform Youku, which have both entered agreements with Hong Kong-based production studios to support various television dramas and films.
Additionally, Alibaba Pictures, a subsidiary based in Beijing and listed in Hong Kong, will set up a second headquarters in the city, marking a strategic expansion. Despite being one of Alibaba’s smaller divisions, the digital media arm contributed about 2.3% to the e-commerce giant’s consolidated revenue in the nine months leading up to December.
The e-commerce juggernaut is enhancing its staff incentives by merging exercisable stock options with cash rewards to lift morale and navigate the tough competition and market challenges.
Starting April 1, 2024, these modifications aim to enrich the “certainty and liquidity” of employee earnings.
A significant adjustment is reducing the vesting period for equity and cash incentives, allowing quarterly exercises of stock options awarded from April onwards, thereby making employee compensation more readily available, SCMP reports.
This strategy introduces “long-term cash” as part of the compensation package, independent of the annual bonus, and will vest over time.
Alibaba’s stock has declined approximately 13% over the past year, significantly dropping from its peak in 2020.
Rumors of potential employee protests over stock option delays led to this significant policy change, particularly benefiting new hires by reducing the impact of share price volatility on their income.
Alibaba recently reverted a policy restricting internal staff transfers among its business units, facilitating greater mobility within the conglomerate, Nikkei Asia reports.
In contrast, Alibaba’s competitor, JD.com Inc (NASDAQ:JD), implemented significant salary hikes for its retail division’s employees last year, nearly doubling the pay for some front-line workers.
Investors can gain exposure to Alibaba via ProShares Online Retail ETF (NYSE:ONLN) and Global X E-Commerce ETF (NASDAQ:EBIZ).
Price Action: BABA shares were up 1.7% to $76.14 at last check Tuesday.
Also Read: Alibaba’s Gaming Division Ushers in Youthful Leadership for a Fresh Era
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Photo: testing/Shutterstock
