Alibaba Kicks Off Hong Kong IPO
Chinese internet conglomerate Alibaba Group announced on November 15 the launch of its long-awaited Hong Kong public offering. The company’s shares will be listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited under the code “9988” with an offer price of no more than HK$188.00 per share. At the same time Alibaba’s American depositary shares, will continue to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange, where the company raised what is known as the biggest IPO in history in 2014. The shares listed in Hong Kong, however, will be fully fungible with the American depositary shares listed on the NYSE.
Through the upcoming IPO, Alibaba expects to expand the company’s investor base and tap into the new capital pools in Asia. Furthermore, by being listed on the two most important stock exchanges in the directly opposite parts of the world, the company essentially creates a round-the-clock market for global investors to trade Alibaba shares.
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“Alibaba is guided by our mission to make it easy to do business anywhere with the vision to be a good company that lasts for 102 years. We aim to serve global consumers, of which more than 1 billion will be Chinese consumers, and facilitate more than 10 trillion yuan of consumption on our platform within the next five years by continuing to pursue our three strategic pillars of globalization, domestic consumption and big data powered by cloud computing,” said Daniel Zhang, Alibaba Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in an official statement. “Hong Kong is one of the world’s most important financial centers and we are grateful for the opportunity to participate in the future of Hong Kong.”
In an internal letter to investors, Zhang also outlined Alibaba’s updated strategy that now hinges on three core goals. Alibaba’s CEO mentions that globalization is the future of his company and that domestic consumption is the future of China’s economy, emphasizing that the country is currently transitioning from an investment-and export-driven economy into a consumption-led economy. Another goal introduced by Zhang was leadership in the data-driven digital economy. “We believe that in the era of the digital economy, productivity will be defined by computing power,” noted Mr. Zhang.
