SoftBank Group Corp. said its sale of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. stock will raise $8.9 billion, an infusion of cash that can be used to strengthen the Japanese company’s balance sheet and allow it act fast when making strategic investments.
Alibaba is paying $74 a share to buy back $2 billion of its own stock from SoftBank, which will also sell stakes worth $500 million apiece to two state-owned investment firms in Singapore at the same per-share price, Alibaba and SoftBank said. Another $400 million of shares will go to the Alibaba Partnership of senior executives. The total amount raised is $1 billion more than what SoftBank announced a day earlier.
