Ryan Cohen still has his sights set on Alibaba Group and has been building up his position in the Chinese e-commerce behemoth.
Cohen is known as the meme-stock king for helping ignite explosive rallies in GameStop and other businesses during the pandemic. In recent months, he has grown his personal stake in Alibaba to roughly $1 billion, or about 7 million shares, according to people familiar with the matter.
The big bet on Alibaba reflects Cohen’s bullishness on China’s long-term economic growth prospects, the people said.
The Wall Street Journal reported roughly two years ago that Cohen had built a stake in Alibaba worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Cohen privately pushed the Chinese business back in 2023 to accelerate its share-repurchase program, arguing Alibaba shares were deeply undervalued. He also privately discussed at the time wanting to have a long-term relationship with the company.
Cohen and Alibaba have had discussions more recently, the people familiar with the matter said. Alibaba’s stock trades at over $130 today, up from around $75 a year ago.
More details around Cohen’s plans for Alibaba couldn’t be determined.
While the billion-dollar stake is still small relative to Alibaba’s whopping $325 billion market value, Cohen’s moves on Wall Street are known for prompting armies of everyday investors to follow suit.
Alibaba this week reported its fastest revenue growth since late 2023, boosted by its artificial-intelligence business. Its stock surged more than 8% Thursday on the results, and is up nearly 60% year to date.
Cohen is the former chief executive of online pets-supplies store Chewy, which he co-founded in 2011. He has served as CEO of GameStop since 2023, and said this week he is trying to sell the retailer’s operations in France and Canada.
In 2022, Cohen famously took a sizable stake in Bed Bath & Beyond before he abruptly sold shares. The home-goods retailer eventually filed for bankruptcy protection. In 2023, Cohen built a big stake in the department-store chain Nordstrom, which struck a deal late last year to be taken private.
The bulk of Cohen’s earlier investments have been passive stakes in big well-known companies including Apple, Netflix and Wells Fargo.
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