Chinese Ecommerce giant Alibaba announced recently its IPO plans more in-depth, including valuing the company at a record $155 billion.
While being the biggest high profile IPO since Facebook listed itself 2 years ago, Alibaba valued itself just below local US rival and some would say counterpart, Amazon, which is valued at $160 billion in market capitalization.
It also seems Alibaba has finally closed in on a date, with September 19th 2014 being the new chosen launch date. Alibaba was set to launch the IPO on August 8th, being rather superstitious with having dates with as many 8s in them, a lucky number in China. The company’s ticker name “BABA” also relates to the 8 theme, meaning 8-8 in China.
Alibaba is planning to sell an expected 12% stake once on the New York Stock Exchange . If the company is able to sell the maximum number of proposed shares at the highest price, the IPO could rake in an estimated $24.3 billion for the firm, its executives, and initial investors.
The main motive behind launching on the New York Stock Exchange rather than a more physically closer Exchange is due to Alibaba looking to expand itself more as a global company as a Chinese one. It was initially planned that the firm would initially launch on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, but strict local regulations on how the company operates had encouraged CEO Jack Ma to look elsewhere, finalizing on NYSE.
