Wall Street Breakfast Podcast: Alibaba Sells Sun Art At $2B Loss

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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)

This is an abridged transcript of the podcast.

Alibaba Group (NYSE:BABA) will sell its majority stake in hypermarket chain Sun Art Retail Group (OTCPK:SURRY) (OTCPK:SURRF) to private equity firm DCP Capital for approximately $1.58 billion.

This transaction involves the sale of a 78.7% stake in Sun Art (OTCPK:SURRY), which Alibaba (BABA) had acquired for $3.6 billion in 2020, indicating a significant loss on the investment.

Sun Art (OTCPK:SURRY) stock traded ~22% lower on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Thursday, while Alibaba (BABA) also traded marginally lower. Sun Art’s stock, which rose by 85% over the past year, outperformed the Hang Seng Index (HSI).

The decision to divest from Sun Art (OTCPK:SURRY) is part of Alibaba’s broader strategy to streamline its business and concentrate on its core e-commerce operations.

“The proceeds from the disposal are currently intended to be used by our company for business developments, shareholder returns, and general corporate purposes.” Alibaba (BABA) said in a statement on Hong Kong Stock Exchange filing.

Recently, Alibaba (BABA) also disposed of its stake in another department store chain, Intime, for $1 billion.

The price of branded prescription drugs will rise an average of 4.5% in 2025, the same increase as was seen in 2024, according to one healthcare research company.

At least 250 drugs will see list price hikes in 2025, based on an analysis from 3 Axis Advisors. That’s more than the 140 drugs pharmaceutical companies said they would raise prices on at the end of 2023 for 2024.

Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) is increasing the price of more than 60 drugs, including its COVID-19 antiviral Paxlovid, Reuters reported, with a 3% hike. Migraine med Nurtec (rimegepant), the antibody-drug conjugate Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin), as well as Ibrance (palbociclib) and Xeljanz (tofacitinib) are going up in price between 3% and 5%.

Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) is raising the price of its CAR T-cell cancer therapies Abecma (idecabtagene vicleucel) and Breyanzi (lisocabtagene maraleucel) by, respectively, 6% and 9%.

Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY) is boosting the prices of some of its vaccines between 2.9% and 9%.

Merck (NYSE:MRK) is cutting the prices of two of its diabetes drugs, Januvia (sitagliptin) and Janumet (sitagliptin/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.

The connections between the two incidents are growing, with the vehicles involved in the events rented from car-sharing app Turo, 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 AM ET.

We’re diving deeper into the New Year terror attacks in the Wall Street Breakfast newsletter, our daily one-page news summary. You can find a link to sign up for the newsletter in show notes.

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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/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%. The market in Japan is closed for a holiday.

The biggest movers for the day premarket: Unity Software (NYSE:U) shares rose as much as 7% after a 1.32M-share block, valued at $29.7M, was traded on the final trading day of 2024.

On today’s economic calendar: