Alibaba Group Holding Ltd priced its shares Thursday at $68 a share for its initial public offering, which puts the Chinese ecommerce giant on track to raise at least $21.8 billion.
And if underwriters exercise an option to sell more shares, the Alibaba IPO will top Agricultural Bank of China’s record $22.1 billion IPO listing in 2010 and garner around $25 billion.Alibaba Group Holding Ltd priced its shares Thursday at $68 a share for its initial public offering, which puts the Chinese ecommerce giant on track #
Alibaba is selling some 320 million shares, equal to around 13 percent of its capital. Nearly two-thirds of these shares are being sold by existing shareholders. The balance will be newly issued shares.
The price is at the top of Alibaba’s expected range of $66 to $68, which was raised from an initial $60 to $66 a share.
The share price gives the Chinese online company an initial market value of $167.6 billion. According to S&P Capital IQ, this makes Alibaba one of the 40 biggest global public companies.
And also more valuable than the poster boy of online shopping - Amazon.com, which is currently valued at $150 billion and double that of eBay.
The Hangzhou, China-based company’s shares begin trading Friday onwards under the ‘BABA’ ticker.
It is expected that early investors may sell $8 billion worth of shares on listing day, to escape the lock-up period, which may require them to hold shares for several more months.
Marissa Mayer-led Yahoo is also all set to gain a windfall from the IPO. Yahoo is selling some $8 billion worth of shares in the offering, leaving it with a 16.3 percent stake. (AR)
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India
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