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Will a Hong Kong Listing for Alibaba Influence Its Daily Trading in New York?
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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA) is the top online seller of everything in China and Asia, and the company has largely become China’s most valuable company, with a market cap of some $480 billion or so. It is also now one of the largest companies in the world. While it has been public in the United States on the New York Stock Exchange for about five years, the company is now pursuing a public listing of its shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as well.
Alibaba plans to sell about $13 billion equivalent worth of stock in a global offering. The move comes at a time when protests have been strong in Hong Kong, and the deal could be more than $13 billion in today’s prices if the overallotment option is exercised in full.
According to a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Alibaba plans to offer 500,000,000 ordinary shares as part of a global offering, made up of 487,500,000 ordinary shares and a Hong Kong public offering of 12,500,000 ordinary shares initially.
Alibaba has put together a large underwriting syndicate for this expected offering. Its joint sponsors, coordinators and bookrunners include some U.S. firms and some global firms (including in China): CICC, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley.
As for the use of proceeds, Alibaba plans to use funds toward implementation of its strategies to drive user growth and engagement, to help businesses facilitate digital transformation and to help customers improve operational efficiency to continue to innovate.
The filing also noted that the company’s officers, executives and Softbank have agreed to a 90-day lockup period as part of the offering. Also worth noting is that the indicated price would come on or around November 20, and it should start trading within four business days after that time.
Alibaba’s U.S.-listed shares traded down 1.2% at $184.68 on Wednesday morning, in a 52-week range of $129.77 to $195.72. The consensus analyst target price is $223.38.
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