Alibaba Confirms Plans To Offer IPO In US

hackingbear writes "China e-commerce giant Alibaba Group confirmed early Sunday that it plans to become a public company in the US. The proposed US IPO, which is expected to raise more than $15 billion, is a bid winning over Hong Kong stock exchange, which had been competing for the offering with US stock exchanges but objected to some of Alibaba's proposed listing terms. Founded in 1999 by former English teacher Jack Ma, the Hangzhou, China company, of which Yahoo owns 24%, provides marketplace platforms that allow merchants to sell goods directly to consumers controlling 80% of Internet e-commerce market in China."

Opions from China

[Anonymous Coward]

Opinions from customers of Alibaba in China are, from what I've heard, that their delivery service leaves a whole lot to be desired. Considering that for growth they'd have to expand outside of China, and compete with Amazon's seemingly unstoppable growth and awesome customer service, with a business model that covers both direct sales and third party listings almost seamlessly, I'd not bet be entirely willing to be on Alibaba. I'd wish them luck, I want someone to compete with Amazon. But I'd not place money on it.

Combined with an exchange, closer to home, losing out for having "objected to some of Alibaba's proposed listing terms." It reminds me a bit too much of The Wolf of Wallstreet. If they're so successful why would they need to raise $15 billion other than for a cash-in?

Alibaba and the thieves

[frovingslosh]

I made the error of buying a few items through Alibaba. Everything is either misrepresented, falsely speced, defective or counterfeit. While Alibaba maintains the pretext of settling disputes with the thieves, they always side with the thieves, so much so that the thieves don't even bother to dispute customers claims, they know that Alibaba always sides with them anyway. Avoid buying anything through Alibaba or buy one share of stock, if you can manage to go to the shareholder meeting and try to hold people accountable.

Re:The group's Board of Directors

[Animats]

The listing terms that the HKEx finds objectionable are centered around the proposed structure of the company, which would allow their 28 partners to control a majority of the board - even though they only own around 13 percent of the company.

Apparently, the HKEx regulators still cling to the quaint notion that small investors are important. I guess those HK guys have a thing or two left to learn about how real capitalism works.

There was a time when the New York Stock Exchange didn't allow that, either. They caved about a decade ago. Now, both Google and Facebook have two class "president for life" stock issues.

Re:The group's Board of Directors

[mutantSushi]

The listing terms that the HKEx finds objectionable are centered around the proposed structure of the company, which would allow their 28 partners to control a majority of the board [reuters.com] - even though they only own around 13 percent of the company. Apparently, the HKEx regulators still cling to the quaint notion that small investors are important. I guess those HK guys have a thing or two left to learn about how real capitalism works.

Non-voting shares are pretty standard in public stock corporations world-wide. Indeed HKEx itself runs such schemes, namely it's OTC Clearing subsidiary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_Exchanges_and_Clearing#History [wikipedia.org]

OTC Clearing Hong Kong Limited (OTC Clear) was incorporated as a subsidiary of HKEx in May 2012 for the purpose of acting as the clearing house for OTC derivatives in Hong Kong. Subsequently, HKEx, under the founding member programme, invited 12 financial institutions as founding members of OTC Clear, who in total hold 25 per cent of issued share capital in OTC Clear (in the form of non-voting ordinary shares) whilst HKEx holds the remaining 75 per cent. HKEx continues to hold 100 per cent of the voting ordinary shares of OTC Clear.

Many publicly traded companies listed in HK in fact have 75%+ of shares owned or controlled by one entity, which has the same net effect as non-voting shares, since such an ownership majority can impose it's will regardless. HKEx has intimated that their true concerns revolve around mainland Chinese court procedures not being amenable to minority shareholders, although if they want to push that, that kind of calls into question HKEx's entire raison d'etre. AFAIK, HK courts can still enforce transfers of shares themselves as judgements, and if HKEx is worried about things that go on outside of HK jurisdiction then most companies traded on HKEx shouldn't be listed there. Realistically, HKEx is known for allowing plenty of shady practices that make it a bourse of last resort, and maybe they decided to stand up here just so they have some pretense of respectability.

Re:Inside China Alibaba is not used

[Anonymous Coward]

Taobao is amazing. You can buy anything there. See people using Taobao, they are really effective, instant messaging directly with the seller drag'n'drop your item in the message, delivery time in many cases is a couple of hours, if you live in one of the big cities. It is a really smooth experience. It beats anything I have seen in the west so far. But of course, if you can't speak Chinese..