Chinese ecommerce company Alibaba.com is looking to raise HK$10.3 billion ($1.3 billion) from its IPO according to documents released to potential investors today.
Alibaba.com Ltd. and Alibaba.com Corp. will sell a combined 858.9 million shares (17%) in Alibaba.com at HK$10 to HK$12 apiece, with Yahoo, currently a 40% share holder in the Alibaba Group buying HK$776 million of the IPO shares, resulting in 8.2% ownership of Alibaba.com Ltd, the newly listed IPO entity.
As we reported in July, the IPO will see the partial spin-off of Alibaba.com from the Alibaba Group, the China based holding company that owns sites including Alipay, Taabao.com and Yahoo China.
The IPO will value Alibaba.com at up to $7.8 billion.
As Bloomberg reports, the Hong Kong IPO is likely to encourage other China based companies to consider listing locally as opposed to the NASDAQ only, where many leading Chinese ecommerce ventures are currently listed.
In related news, Baidu’s market cap has now passed $10 billion, up from $7.97 billion September 17. At close of trade 15 October Baidu stocks closed at $314.95 for a market cap of $10.69 billion, nearly double the market cap the company had in August.