HONG KONG â€" Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, is on an acquisition spree, and this has led to huge rallies in the shares of the companies it has targeted after the deals are made public.
But in its latest deal, an $800 million agreement to buy control of a Hong Kong media group, the shares in the target company began rallying well before Alibaba’s purchase was announced.
In the last three full trading sessions before news of its deal with Alibaba was announced, shares in the company, ChinaVision Media Group, surged 53.7 percent.
The average daily trading volume in the Hong Kong-listed stock over the three days was more than 500 percent higher than it had been in the preceding 30-day period.
‘‘Although the company had made announcements they were in negotiations over unspecified transactions, this is still an exceptional amount of activity,’’ David Webb, a well-known activist investor in Hong Kong, said Wednesday. ‘‘I would expect the Securities and Futures Commission to investigate.’’
The S.F.C., which polices Hong Kong’s markets, declined to comment Wednesday, as did Alibaba. Phone calls and emails to ChinaVision Media and its financial adviser on the deal, Reorient Financial Markets, were not immediately returned.
The abnormally aggressive trading in the shares of ChinaVision took place over three trading days in late February, and ended with the stock’s being suspended from trading on Feb. 25 ‘‘pending the release of an announcement in relation to inside information,’’ the company said in a stock exchange filing.
The shares resumed trading only Wednesday, a day after the company â€" which invests in film, television, newspapers and multimedia businesses in China â€" announced that it would issue new shares representing a 60 percent stake in itself to Alibaba for 6.24 billion Hong Kong dollars, or $804 million, a deal priced at 50 Hong Kong cents per share.
The announcement sent shares in ChinaVision soaring in Hong Kong trading on Wednesday. The stock closed at 1.83 dollars, 186 percent above where it had last traded, three weeks earlier.
It is the second time this year that an investment by Alibaba has created a frenzy over shares in a Hong Kong company, a phenomenon that Mr. Webb referred to as ‘‘Alibubbles.’’ In January, shares in Citic 21CN, a small pharmaceutical data company in China, rose nearly 400 percent after Alibaba agreed to pay about $170 million for a controlling stake.
Alibaba, founded by the billionaire Jack Ma, and its main rivals in China’s resurgent Internet sector â€" Tencent Holdings and Baidu â€" have been on shopping sprees in recent months, buying stakes in logistics companies, online retailers, game developers and other companies, both in China and overseas.
The deals show no signs of slowing down. On Monday, Tencent, whose e-commerce business is an also-ran in China, announced an agreement to pay $215 million for a 15 percent stake in JD.com, the country’s No. 2 e-commerce company, behind Alibaba.
