(Bloomberg) — Daily Journal Corp., a newspaper and software business that counts Charlie Munger as one of the overseers of its stock portfolio, cut its stake in Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. by roughly half.
The Los Angeles-based company owned 300,000 American depositary shares in Alibaba at the end of March, according to a regulatory filing Monday. That’s down from 602,060 at the end of last year. Daily Journal’s current Alibaba holdings are valued at roughly $31 million as of 2:35 p.m. in New York.
For years, Munger led Daily Journal as chairman, in addition to his role as a vice chairman at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Daily Journal announced in March that the 98-year-old billionaire would step down from that role, but still hold a board seat and “continue to pay particular attention to matters with which he has been involved in the past, including the company’s securities portfolio,” according to a regulatory filing at the time. He also said that he would donate $1 million of his stock in the company to create an equity incentive plan.
Daily Journal is known for its collection of papers and for selling software to customers that include justice agencies and courts. The business also holds a collection of stocks in addition to its operating businesses, similar to Berkshire’s strategy of also investing while owning businesses. Its stock portfolio consisted of five different publicly disclosed investments at the end of March, which includes the Alibaba holding that it first started disclosing a year ago.
Munger’s assistant said he declined to comment on Daily Journal’s Alibaba stake. Alibaba’s American depositary receipts slumped almost 50% in 2021, and are down nearly 14% this year.
(Updates with valuation in second paragraph and pricing in fifth.)
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