Wall Street Breakfast

Alibaba sells Sun Art at $2B loss

Alibaba (BABA) to sell stake in China's hypermarket chain Sun Art for $1.58B. (00:29) Brand prescription drugs to rise an average 4.5% in 2025. (01:39) Cybertruck (TSLA) blast driver identified; links to New Orleans attacker are growing. (02:43)

Episode transcripts seekingalpha.com/wsb.

Show links:
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Synaptics stock rises 5% after partnership with Google to advance Edge AI for IoT devices
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Duration:: 5m
Broadcast on:: 02 Jan 2025
Audio Format:: other

Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Breakfast, where we cover the top news for investors every morning. Good morning! It's so good to have you here on this first trading day of 2025. Thursday, January 2nd. I'm Julie Morgan. Alibaba trims its portfolio. It'll cost you even more to get sick in 2025. And could there be a link between the attack on Bourbon Street and the incident in Las Vegas? Alibaba Group will sell its majority stake in hyper market chain Sun Art Retail Group to private equity firm DCP Capital for approximately $1.58 billion. This transaction involves a sale of a 78.7% stake in Sun Art, which Alibaba had acquired for $3.6 billion in 2020, indicating a significant loss on the investment. Sun Art traded about 22% lower on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Thursday, while Alibaba also traded marginally lower. Sun Art's stock, which rose by 85% over the past year, outperformed the Hang Seng index. The decision to divest from Sun Art is part of Alibaba's broader strategy to streamline its business and concentrate on its core e-commerce operations. Alibaba said in a statement that proceeds from the disposal are currently intended to be used for business development. shareholder returns and general corporate purposes. Recently, Alibaba also disposed of its stake in another department store chain, in time for $1 billion. The price of branded prescription drugs will rise an average of 4.5% in 2025. The same increase as we saw in 2024, according to One Healthcare Research Company. At least 250 drugs will see list price hikes in 2025 based on analysis from three Axis advisors. That's more than 140 drugs pharmaceutical companies said they would raise prices on at the end of 2023 for 2024. Reuters reported that Pfizer is increasing the price of more than 60 drugs, including its COVID-19 antiviral with a 3% hike. Other drugs are going up between 3 and 5%, including well-known names like Zelljans. Bristol Myers-Squib is also raising the price of its CAR T-cell cancer therapies by as much as 9%. Sanofi is boosting the prices of some of its vaccines between 2.9 and 9%. But Merck is cutting the prices of two of its diabetes drugs, including Metformin. Domestic security is back in the spotlight as law enforcement and federal authorities investigate a pair of attacks that occurred over New Year's 2025. One attack happened in New Orleans on Bourbon Street. At least 15 people are dead and even more were injured after a driver plowed into people celebrating the new year. The other incident occurred in Las Vegas outside the Trump International Hotel. A Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the hotel. We're learning that the connections between the two incidents are growing with the vehicles involved in the events rented from car-sharing app Turro. Both were EV pickup trucks and the perpetrators reportedly served on the same U.S. military base. More information may become available today as the FBI provides an unclassified briefing to the relevant House and Senate oversight committees at 10 a.m. Eastern Time. We're diving deeper into the New Year terror attacks in the Wall Street Breakfast newsletter, our daily one-page new summary. You can find a link to sign up for the newsletter in show notes. Now let's take a look at what's trending on Seeking Alpha. BYD's December N.E.V. sale set another record high. Synaptix rises 5% after a partnership with Google to advance edge AI for IoT devices. And just do it again, will Nike keep its lead in 2025 or trip on the track? Now let's take a look at the markets ahead of the opening bell. Dow S&P and NASDAQ futures are in the green. Crude oil is up 1.4% at 72.00 a barrel. Bitcoin is up 3.6% at 96.000. In the world markets, the FTSE 100 is flat and the DAX is down 0.4%. And the market in Japan is closed for holiday. Unity software is on our list of the biggest movers of the day pre-market. You is up 8% after a 1.32 million share block valued at 29.7 million dollars was traded on the final trading day of 2024. On today's economic calendar at 8.30 AM, initial jobless claims and at 10 AM, construction spending. That's it for today's Wall Street Breakfast. Thanks for listening. To take full advantage of seeking alpha with coverage on significant stocks and ETFs, become a premium subscriber. Check out seekingalpha.com/subscriptions. I'm your host Julie Morgan. Go out and make it a great day! [BLANK_AUDIO]