shares in softbank group corp soared after chinese ecommerce conglomerate alibaba group in which the japanese technology investor has a 137 stake announced a major restructuring plan softbank shares were up 56 in afternoon trade on track to post the biggest percentage gain in five months alibaba shares were up 132 alibaba said on tuesday it was planning to split into six units and explore fundraising or listings for most of them in the biggest restructuring in its 24year history sbi securities analyst shinji moriyuki said the splitup would probably prevent chinese government scrutiny of any of alibabas operations from affecting the rest of the group chinas unprecedented regulatory crackdown in the last couple of years on its marquee domestic companies mainly in the internet private education and property sectors wiped off billions in market values and weighed on investor sentiment investors took heart from sense of uncertainty over alibaba having been eased a little there was a certain discount to softbanks stake given the unclear direction of chinas internet sector moriyuki said alibaba said on tuesday it would split into six units cloud intelligence group taobao tmall commerce group local services group cainiao smart logistics group global digital commerce group and digital media and entertainment group alibaba itself would reorganise into a holding company structure with daniel zhang retaining his position as group ceo and with separate ceos and boards for each of the six subdivisions ichiyoshi asset management director mitsushige akino said that investors chased softbank higher in light of a spike in alibaba shares but that it is too early to tell whether the revamp will bring lasting growth to the chinese company im not sure if a 5 rise in softbank shares can be justified i believe buy orders including short covering are being placed in response to this new factor to trade on we just have to wait and see how this really plays out akino said reporting by kiyoshi takenaka editing by gerry doylefacebooktwitterlinkedinend of article10910131298799128