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R40 coverage for Alibaba Group Holding Limited (BABA).
R40 Coverage
Alibaba Is Selling 710 Million New Shares to Fund AI. Is Baidu Next?
The largest primary follow-on in Hong Kong's history is 710 million ordinary shares at HK$112.70 — about $10.2 billion, all of it for AI, and it covers 102% of one June quarter's capex. The obvious next question is Baidu, which is in the same race at a sixth of the scale: 35.6 quarters of cash runway against Alibaba's 10.6, and a build it has already funded with RMB 36 billion of new borrowing rather than equity.
Alibaba's Cloud Grew 45% and Its Free Cash Flow Fell to Negative $6.6 Billion. We Bounded the Quarter at +0.9 to +7.2 and It Printed −1.9.
Revenue landed on consensus and non-GAAP EPS missed the entire estimate band. Capex rose 75% to RMB 67.7B — 2.5x the quarter's adjusted EBITA — and free cash flow came in at −$6.58B against the −$2.63B bar our preview said it had to beat. The AI burn also got its own reporting segment, which lost RMB 13.9B on RMB 3.3B of revenue.
Alibaba Has Burned $6.6 Billion Buying an AI Business and a Retail War. Thursday Is the First Quarter That Can Show Either One Paying.
Alibaba's trailing free cash flow is negative $6.58B because it is funding an AI datacentre build and an instant-commerce subsidy war at once. The June quarter cannot settle that with its Rule of 40, which stays between 0.9 and 7.2 on every print we can model — it settles it with four numbers management put on the record in May, starting with the RMB 10bn of AI ARR they called 'highly certain' for this quarter.
Alibaba Joins Coverage With a Rule of 40 of About One
Alibaba's trailing twelve months show $145.4B of revenue growing 5% and free cash flow of negative $6.6B — a $16.8B swing from the +$10.2B it generated in the prior four quarters. The AI datacentre build and the instant-commerce subsidy war are both landing in the same cash line, three days before the June-quarter print.