Alibaba Has Gone On A Buying Spree Since Taking Groupon Stake

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd BABA made major headlines in the U.S. earlier this year when the company announced a new 5.6 stake in Groupon Inc GRPN. Since the Groupon acquisition, however, Alibaba has shown no signs of slowing down.

Just this week, the Chinese e-commerce giant announced a pair of new deals. First, Alibaba took a $1.25 billion stake in Chinese food delivery startup Ele.me. Ele.me is part of Alibaba’s O2O, or “online to offline” push to take advantage of the wave of mobile adoption across China in coming years.

In addition to its O2O initiatives, Alibaba also announced a new $1 billion majority stake in Southeast Asian e-commerce site Lazada this week. The deal is part of Alibaba’s push to expand its reach beyond China’s borders.

Related Link: Something Shady Is Going On With U.S.-Listed Chinese Companies

Lazada operates in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Indonesia and its 256 million residents represent the largest market in the region.

In addition to O2O and international expansion efforts, Alibaba also recently made strides to improve its public image by becoming the first e-commerce company to join the International AntiCounterfeiting Coalition.

After a horrendous 2015 and a 25 percent decline to start 2016, Alibaba’s stock has surged back in recent months and is now down just 2.3 percent on the year.

Disclosure: The author is long BABA.