Chinese e-commerce Giant Alibaba Group plans to go public by filling for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the US. This could probably be the largest U.S. initial public offering ever.
Although the exact value of the IPO remains unknown, the e-commerce giant used a $1 billion placeholder as regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission which will be used to calculate registration fees.
“Although the value of Alibaba has been focused on the strength it has in the e-commerce space and its ability to expand outside of China, it is worth noting that the company has great potential to grow in the domestic market,” said Nicole Peng, research director for Canalys China. “And at this point an IPO is important to support its accelerating expansion.”
Alibaba which was founded in 1999 by a former English teacher Jack Ma, now has an estimated value of 168 billion and is called the Chinese internet power house, often described as eBay , PayPal and Amazon rolled into one to be the largest e-commerce company in the world.
This development is good news for yahoo and its investors as Yahoo’s stake in Alibaba is worth about $26 billion. Yahoo also owns 22.6% of Alibaba after an initial investment in 2005 and a later sale of more than half its stake in the Chinese company in 2012 for more than $7 billion.
You can check out the registration documents here.
