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Here's why one hedge fund manager thinks Alibaba could be a big fraud
by Jen Wieczner @jenwieczner SEPTEMBER 18, 2015, 5:42 PM EDT
Compared to Amazon and UPS’s figures, Alibaba’s numbers don’t add up, he
says.
Alibaba has already had a terrible first year since its IPO: Its shares are
down 28%. But one well-known hedge fund manager has a suspicion that, if
true, could potentially destroy Alibaba’s stock completely.
In a post on his blog this week, Bronte Capital hedge fund manager John
Hempton laid out reasons why the Chinese e-commerce company’s delivery
figures seemed fishy. The possibility that Alibaba BABA -1.36% might be a
fraud, he wrote, “is a thesis worth testing”—and plans to gather evidence
, and potentially short the stock, depending on what he finds.
Hempton, an Australia-based investor known recently for making a long bet on
Herbalife HLF -1.37% opposite hedge fund manager Bill Ackman’s famous
short, said he got the idea from fresh-out-of-school candidates whom he
interviewed for an entry-level position:
[Several] suggested that we could not dismiss the idea that Alibaba was
faking their numbers. Most people who suggested that knew what an
extraordinary (and potentially outrageously profitable) suggestion it was.
After all some two-bit reverse merger Chinese company might be a fraud –
but you can only make a limited profit from that. The idea that Alibaba – a
company with half the market cap of Google GOOG -1.99% might be making
its numbers up is – well – extraordinary.
Here’s how they got that idea, by the numbers:
On Alibaba’s “Singles’ Day” shopping event (“think of it as Black
Friday in America,” Hempton wrote), in November 2014, the company said it
received and shipped 278 million orders.
That’s 7.5 times more orders than the 37 million orders Amazon AMZN 0.47%
received on Cyber Monday.
It’s also “more parcels in a single day than Amazon had users [244 million
] in a whole year.”
Alibaba said its network delivered 8.6 billion packages from its retailers
to customers in the year ended March 31, 2015—or about double the 4.6
billion packages UPS UPS -2.29% delivered in 2014.
Alibaba reported about 35,000 total full-time employees as of March 31, 2015
. Meanwhile, UPS had more than 12 times as many (435,000) and Amazon had
more than four times as many (15,000)—plus robots, Hempton added.
Then Hempton did some math: “To truly deliver at a larger intensity than
Amazon, Alibaba and its outsource network would need more staff or capital (
or both) than Amazon and UPS combined.”
Alibaba said that Alipay, the online payment processor it divested in 2011,
handled 2.85 million transactions per minute at the peak of Singles’ Day.
By comparison, “Visa’s V -1.65% peak transaction volume globally [840,
000 transactions per minute, by Hempton’s calculation] is only about 30
percent of Alipay’s peak minute. This suggests a level of shopping in China
that puts the US, Europe and most of Asia to shame,” Hempton wrote.
Earlier this week, Alibaba responded publicly to a Barron’s article that
expressed a similar skepticism about the “seeming improbability” of some
of Alibaba’s reported figures. “Alibaba stands by our reported financials
and operating metrics,” the company wrote in its response.
“At this point I know the numbers are wonky,” Hempton concluded his
analysis. But before he’ll begin shorting Alibaba, he needs more evidence.
As for how to collect that evidence, he’s welcoming suggestions.
Here's why one hedge fund manager thinks Alibaba could be a big fraud
by Jen Wieczner @jenwieczner SEPTEMBER 18, 2015, 5:42 PM EDT
Compared to Amazon and UPS’s figures, Alibaba’s numbers don’t add up, he
says.
Alibaba has already had a terrible first year since its IPO: Its shares are
down 28%. But one well-known hedge fund manager has a suspicion that, if
true, could potentially destroy Alibaba’s stock completely.
In a post on his blog this week, Bronte Capital hedge fund manager John
Hempton laid out reasons why the Chinese e-commerce company’s delivery
figures seemed fishy. The possibility that Alibaba BABA -1.36% might be a
fraud, he wrote, “is a thesis worth testing”—and plans to gather evidence
, and potentially short the stock, depending on what he finds.
Hempton, an Australia-based investor known recently for making a long bet on
Herbalife HLF -1.37% opposite hedge fund manager Bill Ackman’s famous
short, said he got the idea from fresh-out-of-school candidates whom he
interviewed for an entry-level position:
[Several] suggested that we could not dismiss the idea that Alibaba was
faking their numbers. Most people who suggested that knew what an
extraordinary (and potentially outrageously profitable) suggestion it was.
After all some two-bit reverse merger Chinese company might be a fraud –
but you can only make a limited profit from that. The idea that Alibaba – a
company with half the market cap of Google GOOG -1.99% might be making
its numbers up is – well – extraordinary.
Here’s how they got that idea, by the numbers:
On Alibaba’s “Singles’ Day” shopping event (“think of it as Black
Friday in America,” Hempton wrote), in November 2014, the company said it
received and shipped 278 million orders.
That’s 7.5 times more orders than the 37 million orders Amazon AMZN 0.47%
received on Cyber Monday.
It’s also “more parcels in a single day than Amazon had users [244 million
] in a whole year.”
Alibaba said its network delivered 8.6 billion packages from its retailers
to customers in the year ended March 31, 2015—or about double the 4.6
billion packages UPS UPS -2.29% delivered in 2014.
Alibaba reported about 35,000 total full-time employees as of March 31, 2015
. Meanwhile, UPS had more than 12 times as many (435,000) and Amazon had
more than four times as many (15,000)—plus robots, Hempton added.
Then Hempton did some math: “To truly deliver at a larger intensity than
Amazon, Alibaba and its outsource network would need more staff or capital (
or both) than Amazon and UPS combined.”
Alibaba said that Alipay, the online payment processor it divested in 2011,
handled 2.85 million transactions per minute at the peak of Singles’ Day.
By comparison, “Visa’s V -1.65% peak transaction volume globally [840,
000 transactions per minute, by Hempton’s calculation] is only about 30
percent of Alipay’s peak minute. This suggests a level of shopping in China
that puts the US, Europe and most of Asia to shame,” Hempton wrote.
Earlier this week, Alibaba responded publicly to a Barron’s article that
expressed a similar skepticism about the “seeming improbability” of some
of Alibaba’s reported figures. “Alibaba stands by our reported financials
and operating metrics,” the company wrote in its response.
“At this point I know the numbers are wonky,” Hempton concluded his
analysis. But before he’ll begin shorting Alibaba, he needs more evidence.
As for how to collect that evidence, he’s welcoming suggestions.
