This story is part of Forbes’ coverage of Hong Kong’s Richest 2025. See the full list here.
Being an avid basketball fan seems to have paid off for Alibaba cofounder and chairman Joseph Tsai, contributing to a $2.3 billion boost to his wealth. Tsai, who owns NBA team Brooklyn Nets, sold a 15% stake last June in BSE Global, the Nets’ parent company, for $688 million to American billionaire Julia Koch.
The deal valued BSE, which also owns operating rights to sports arena Barclays Center and women’s basketball team New York Liberty, at $4.6 billion. (Forbes ranked the Nets as the eighth-most valuable NBA franchise in 2024 with a $4.8 billion enterprise value—up 25% from the previous year and about twice the amount Tsai had paid to acquire it.) At the time of the transaction, Tsai, who remains BSE chairman and Nets governor, said that getting Koch as an investor was “an invaluable addition to our franchise.”
Meanwhile, Alibaba’s shares are up more than 40% from a year ago, benefiting from the January release of a new version of its AI model Qwen. In the six months ended September 2024, revenue grew 5% to $68 billion, while net profit was up 13% as investment gains offset losses from its overseas e-commerce units.
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