(Bloomberg) -- SoftBank Group Corp. doubled the amount it plans to spend buying back shares and announced changes to its board, including the resignation of long-time director Jack Ma.

The company plans to repurchase as much as 500 billion yen ($4.7 billion) worth of its own stock by March 2021, it said in a statement. That’s on top of an equally sized repurchase it had announced in mid-March.

The Tokyo-based company also announced several changes to its board, including the departure of Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Three new directors have been nominated, including Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto. SoftBank shares rose as much as 3%.

SoftBank, led by founder Masayoshi Son, is buying back shares to bolster its stock price after its portfolio of startup investments lost value. The company expects to book a record 1.35 trillion yen operating loss for the year ended March 31 when it reports financial results Monday afternoon in Tokyo. After aggressively investing in startups in recent years, SoftBank is marking down the value of stakes in companies such as WeWork, Oyo Hotels and Uber Technologies Inc.

“The buyback announcement is a surprise, given the slew of low expectations and bad news,” said Justin Tang, head of Asian research at United First Partners.

SoftBank plans to fund the buybacks in part through the sale of stakes in Alibaba and T-Mobile US Inc., Bloomberg News has reported. SoftBank is now in talks to sell a “significant portion” of T-Mobile US to controlling shareholder Deutsche Telekom AG, Dow Jones reported.

The company said on Friday that it had bought 250.6 billion yen of its own stock since March 13 under the original re-purchase plan, about half of the 500 billion yen budget.

Read more: SoftBank’s $23 Billion Buyback Helps Investors Ignore Profit Hit

That first buyback, announced in mid-March, initially failed to lift SoftBank’s stock amid concerns the conglomerate’s portfolio of startups is vulnerable to the economic shock from the coronavirus pandemic. When the shares plunged more than 30% in the week that followed, Son took an unprecedented step to unveil a broader plan to repurchase as much as 2 trillion yen, without detailing the timing. The latest announcement is part of that broader plan.

“Son is also sending a message that he is serious about funding that 2 trillion yen buyback he announced in March,” Tang said.

The stock gained almost 70% since SoftBank said it plans to sell assets to raise as much as 4.5 trillion yen over the coming year to buy shares and slash debt.