Alibaba, according to rumors collected by CNBC, is preparing to close a record IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Just as violent student protests are raging in the Asian city, the Chinese e-commerce giant founded by Jack Ma (who left the leadership a year ago) has decided to end the collection of orders early for what it will be the biggest IPO of the year, surpassing with its 13,8 billion US dollars the 8 billion of Uber's listing in May. In fact, due to the booming demand, the books were closed a few hours in advance, at six this morning (Italian time, or noon in the local time zone) instead of 10 (16 pm local time).
Alibaba will set the final price by Wednesday, November 20 (institutional price is $22,48 per share, which is a 4% discount to Wall Street's closing price on Tuesday, November 19) and the stock will enter Hong Kong trading on November 26 : the group will issue 500 million ordinary shares plus 75 million shares to service the green-shoe. Of the 500 million shares, 12,5 million are reserved for retail investors but there is still the possibility of increasing the offer dedicated to small savers up to 50 million shares, or 10% of the total offer. The company announced in recent days that the retail shares will have a maximum price of 188 Hong Kong dollars, approximately 24 US dollars, while the quota sold to the institutional investor segment will be able to have a higher price.
For the Chinese group, the record is a déjà-vu, given that the placement in Asia comes five years after the 25 billion dollar one on Wall Street, which remains to date, for now, the highest in history worldwide . Alibaba will use the resources collected to facilitate the digital transformation, according to the company itself. Among the new business areas in which it aims to invest is that of home food delivery.
“In recent years – he explained Daniel Zhang, CEO and president of Alibaba, in a letter addressed to investors – there have been many positive reforms in the Hong Kong market and in this phase of changes we continue to believe that Hong Kong's future remains bright and we hope to be able to contribute to its future”. According to some analysts, the listing in Hong Kong also serves to give Chinese investors the opportunity, often subject to restrictions in their exposure to international financial assets, to increase their possibility of injecting capital into the stock markets.
