Wednesday, August 1, 2007

China's Alibaba confirms plan to list in Hong Kong

Alibaba is a member of the Alibaba Group, the umbrella company for Alibaba.com, Taobao.com, Alipay.com, Yahoo! China and Alisoft.com. The feisty Jack Ma confirmed that the company is planning going public in Hong Kong, though the exact date has not been set.

If the market listing succeeds, the total equity of the group is expected to exceed $10 billion, allowing the company to overtake its rivals Tencent, Baidu and Netease in value. A successful IPO is also expected to create a number of millionaires.

Alibaba's three largest shareholders are Yahoo! Inc (40%), Jack Ma and his management team (28%) and Softbank (16%). Jack Ma calls going public "like refueling a truck so it can reach its destination - to create a great enterprise."

"Making money is not the objective, building a great company is and the money will follow." Interesting philosophy of Jack Ma.

Alibaba is the world's leading B2B marketplace wth more than 3 million members from 200 countries built in just nine years.

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