For at least two weeks there have been rumors of an imminent landing on Wall Street of Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant. Yesterday evening the giant presented the documents for the share placement to the SEC, the American Consob, the most awaited of the year which promises to be one of the largest in history.
The group founded in 1999 by a charismatic former English professor, Jack Ma, has indicated that it could raise a billion dollars, although the figure is only indicative. According to analysts, in fact, it could reach well beyond the 16 billion of the Facebook IPO of May 2012, perhaps reaching 20 billion dollars, also beating the historical record of Visa which in 2008 had collected almost 20 billion.
For its descent to the stock market, the giant has enlisted the main world banks: Credit Suisse Deutsche Bank, Goldman, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Citi. But how much is the group born on the Blue River worth? According to the latest estimates published by the Wall Street Journal, its valuation has reached 115 billion dollars.
Other figures were revealed in the filings with the SEC: At the end of December, Alibaba had 20.884 employees, 2013 net profits were $1,39 billion, and its cash reserves were $7,88 billion. In addition to this, a fact that should not be underestimated is the participation of Yahoo! which owns 24 percent of the company. The group led by Marissa Meyer has announced that after the fall on the stock exchange it will put half of it on the market.
