Billionaire George Soros sells Alibaba shares

Alibaba recently announced a deal with one of China's largest physical retailers, Suning

The fund owned by the influential billionaire George Soros has sold most of its shares in the Chinese online retail firm Alibaba.

Soros Fund Management now holds just 60,000 shares worth $4.88m, according to a regulatory filing.

That is down from $370m worth of shares at the end of March.

Alibaba listed in New York last September. Its shares hit record highs in November but since then have fallen by 37%.

Last week, the company disappointed analysts on Wall Street with its latest quarterly results, reporting its slowest quarterly revenue growth in three years, up 28% to $3.2bn.

Mr Soros's firm also sold shares in the Chinese online search engine Baidu, but bought shares in Time Warner and Facebook.

Mr Soros, an investor and philanthropist, came a joint second on Forbes' list of highest-earning hedge fund managers this year - bringing in $1.2bn in 2014.

He is famous for speculating against the pound in 1992, contributing to its collapse and exit from the EU exchange rate mechanism (ERM), the forerunner of the euro.