Alibaba settles row with Yahoo and Softbank

SAN FRANCISCO - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd reached an agreement on Friday with Yahoo! Inc and Softbank Corp, its largest shareholders, ending a four-month spat over how to compensate investors after an ownership change in China's most popular online-payment service.

Alibaba, which transferred the Alipay unit to a company controlled by Chairman Jack Ma last year, will get as much as $6 billion if Alipay sells shares to the public, according to a statement on July 29. Before any sale, Alibaba will receive 49.9 percent of Alipay's earnings.

The deal leaves Alibaba and, by extension, Yahoo and Softbank, with less access to the growth of the payments business. Yahoo's shares had lost almost 30 percent of their value in the past three months on concern that its future in the booming Chinese market was at risk. The United States company disclosed the loss of Alipay in May, saying it only learned about the August 2010 transfer in March.