Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba is seeking to sell its entire stake in Mango Excellent Media, less than a year after buying stock shares from the company. The move comes as Beijing has tightened its grip over various industries, including e-commerce.
Alibaba is seeking a waiver from a one-year lockup agreement, the filing showed. The agreed period ends on Dec. 26, 2021.
The document didn’t reveal the proposed selling price, yet shares of the media company have fallen roughly 40 percent since Alibaba’s investment proposal was disclosed last year.
Alibaba built a portfolio of media holdings under its founder Jack Ma, covering print media, social media, advertising, and movies. The company has stocks in media outlets, including Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post and China’s Twitter-equivalent platform Weibo, in addition to its own filmmaking division, Alibaba Pictures.
Moreover, Beijing ordered Alibaba to liquidate its media assets for challenging the state-controlled media propaganda, according to a March report by The Wall Street Journal.
Alibaba said in a statement that it did not “intervene or get involved in the [media] companies’ day-to-day operations or editorial decisions,” The Journal reported.
As of date, Alibaba’s stock price has fallen by nearly half over the past year.
In recent months, the Chinese Communist Party has implemented regulatory crackdowns that have targeted several big companies and organizations, as well as influential individuals, in a bid to solidify its rule in the mainland, according to China watchers.