China’s JD.com Plans $1 Billion Share Buyback – Wall Street Journal
What happened: Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com announced plans on Wednesday to buy back up to $1 billion worth of its shares over the course of next year. The buyback is said to be partly due to concerns about China’s slowing economy amid trade tensions with the US and JD.com’s recent woes surrounding the rape allegation against CEO Richard Liu.
Why it’s important: Just last week, US prosecutors decided not to press criminal charges against Liu, who was accused of raping a young female undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota. JD.com’s shares slumped nearly 16% in the two days after Liu’s arrest, and 50% in the past year. Last month, the company reported that its active user accounts fell from the preceding quarter for the first time in four years. Other Chinese tech companies also suffered this year. Alibaba’s shares also dropped significantly and Tencent also spent more than a month buying back its shares this year.