Five years after the record debut on Wall Street, at home Alibaba we come back to talk about Ipo. This time the Chinese e-commerce giant wants to land on the list of Hong Kong. A secondary listing compared to that of New York - which at the time made history reaching 25 billion dollars - but still rich enough to deserve the palm of the most impressive placement of 2019.
Alibaba specified in a statement that they will be offered on the market up to 575 million shares at the maximum unit price of 188 Hong Kong dollars. The maximum value of the operation should therefore be equal to $13,8 billion, about 12,5 billion euros. If one considers the Hong Kong Stock Exchange alone, it is the largest IPO in the last nine years.
The offer starts today at 9am (local time) and ends at 12pm on Wednesday November 20. The actual debut on the stock market is expected instead for the November 26.
"Hong Kong's future is bright - commented the president of Alibaba, Daniel Zhang - In recent years we have seen many encouraging reforms on the local capital market and despite the changes underway we remain confident".
The decision to launch such an IPO at a time when Hong Kong is plagued by clashes and violence may come as a surprise. On the other hand, according to some analysts, the move by Alibaba (which is also a private group) should be read precisely in a political key as a message from Beijing on the fate that awaits the rioters of the former British colony. In essence, China would like to emphasize that it is firmly determined to reassert its control over Hong Kong and on its very important financial centre.
But there is also another possible interpretation, which is not in conflict with the first one. “He will leave in the next few days another IPO, that of Aramco, which will be listed on the Saudi Arabian market and which is probably destined to become a new record IPO – Antonio Cesarano, chief global strategist of Intermonte Sim reminds the Agi agency – The hypothesis is that after Riyadh, Aramco may be listed again, perhaps in Hong Kong. The Alibaba test could therefore also become important for the listing of Aramco, so we could define it a pioneering IPO, whose goal is to restore confidence in the Hong Kong market".
