Chinese culture is not honest. The idea of &quot;shareholder value&quot; must sound disturbing for them.<p>Now Alibaba. Amazon and Ebay on Steroids. Maybe. Or not so much?<p>Parts of the company are removed&#x2F;divested from the stock. This is very likely not a good thing.
In case of Alipay  (Think Paypal) it is not a good thing because investors lose a very valuable asset. 
In case of the delivery services, it is not a good thing because likely this is a money losing business, making look Alibaba much more profitable than it is.<p>“My experience with Chinese companies is that what you don’t know is generally not good news.”
I agree on that. I live in China and I don&#x27;t own any Chinese stocks. You may take all this already into consideration when investing into Alibaba.<p>Not to the linked previous article from Bronte capital (their blog is actually in my RSS feed and very good):
<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;09&#x2F;18&#x2F;alibaba-faking-numbers-hedge-fund&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;fortune.com&#x2F;2015&#x2F;09&#x2F;18&#x2F;alibaba-faking-numbers-hedge-f...</a><p>He has a look on some reported numbers from Alibaba. And while mathematically possible, I would again take them into carefully consideration of your investment.<p>I use Alibaba. Its good. Most of the stuff is fake but they have good and cheap things. But knowing the Chinese and seeing this red herrings, I would pass.<p>Here is another Blog post about another Alibaba competitor (competitor to Alibabas TMart) JD that speaks very positively about the competitor:
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oraclefromomaha.wordpress.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;05&#x2F;05&#x2F;jd-com-a-multi-decade-compounder&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;oraclefromomaha.wordpress.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;05&#x2F;05&#x2F;jd-com-a-mu...</a><p>But in the end, both are Chinese companies.