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CHINES ONLINE MARKETPLACE Alibaba wants raise up to $24.3 billion in its upcoming US stock offering, making it the largest stock flotation in history.
The company told US regulators it would offer some 320 million shares in a range of $60 to $66 per share. An option will be available for 48 million additional shares.
The plan would raise a minimum of $19.2 billion even if the option for additional shares is not used.
And the maximum amount based on the range and the option would be $24.3 billion, which would break the record of $22.1 billion by China’s AGBank in 2010, according to research firm Dealogic.
No date was set for the market debut, but some reports have said the company would begin presentations to investors next week and the stock would trade around 18 or 19 September.
The initial public offering (IPO) set for the New York Stock Exchange is part of efforts by Alibaba to expand globally.
Alibaba operates China’s most popular e-shopping platform, Taobao, which has more than 90% of the online market for consumer-to-consumer transactions in the country.
Taobao has more than 800 million product listings and over 500 million users.
Alibaba’s consumer services are similar to a mix of those offered by US Internet titans eBay, PayPal and Amazon.com, and it also operates services for wholesalers.
However the China-based group does not sell products directly, instead hosting online venues such as Taobao where buyers and sellers can do business.
The strategy has given Alibaba an enviable profit margin as an online middleman of sorts.
Alibaba Group made a profit of nearly $2 billion on revenue of $2.5 billion in the quarter ending 30 June according to its latest filing. Revenue rose 46% from the same period a year earlier.
Founder Jack Ma set up Alibaba in 1999, convincing friends to fund him with $60,000.
The company started as a platform for Chinese manufacturers to connect with foreign buyers and later launched flagship site Taobao in 2003.
The company decided to list in New York because Hong Kong Stock Exchange rules prevented Ma and senior management retaining some control over the board of directors.
Alibaba wanted an alternative class share structure to give selected minority shareholders extra control over the board, but the Hong Kong bourse declined to change its rules.
A US government panel warned earlier this year that Alibaba’s complex corporate structure posed risks to investors.
Alibaba and other big Chinese tech firms use a complex legal mechanism in which “ownership is deliberately obscured by a series of shell companies,” the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in a June report.
Because of this structure, any legal contracts may be on shaky ground, noting that “the contracts are only binding and enforceable if Chinese courts are willing to uphold them,” the report noted.
Alibaba Group is registered in the Cayman Islands and operates through a series of subsidiaries in Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands and elsewhere.
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Not this w/anchor again….. Give us a break.
@Joe Toner: they don’t report half the stuff he does. The whole truth is much worse.
His threat was baseless as he doesn’t control the funding, Congress does. And he and his Press Secretary were caught out openly lying about it.
@Mick.: it’s called “quid pro quo”… but I am sure in his mind it was another “perfect” call
@Mick.: he probably doesnt even know that.
@Mick.: A few weeks ago he was convinced he was some sort of king when it came to deciding when states reopened.
Richard Nixon resigned on a scandal that this buffoon seems to do on a daily basis and gets away with it.the role of president of America has been reduced to a daily sitcom with this gobdaw
We are watching a slow-moving coup d’etat as the limited democracy of the USA is being eaten away step by step.
Dictator Donald minds himself while 100,000 of his people die.
Gotta love the Trumpy bashing stories..
Sure a Boris one is due ..
@Gary O CONNOR: He’s the gift that just keeps giving !!!
@Gary O CONNOR: He keeps supplying the ammo
@Gary O CONNOR: yes, it’s very easy to both Trump,
So let’s do it!!!
Come on lads jokes over get rid of him.
For a nation that prides itself as the land of the free, why are they not seeing that this man is single handedly trying to erode this. I would have any voting machine/ process that is in use checked as it sounds that the most untrustworthy of individuals thinks he knows something that the sheep don’t.
@Edward Boyle: He’s losing.. its over,
Biden can stay in his basement till November and still win because Trump has dropped the ball so badly, Trump claimed covid was 15 cases soon to be zero and now we have 100k dead and Depression era unemployment levels,
most voters will ask themselves are they better off now than they were in 2016 and given the fact he lost the popular vote in 2026 by 3million votes ..Trump is toast.
@Diaspora’d: if only it were that easy. 32% of likely voters strongly approve of him. 46% approve.
@Edward Boyle: just going from twitter but his supporters believe the Democrats/liberals/the left are satan’s minions. The dems (in their mind) are baby kiillin, gun restricting, criminal releasing, LBGTQ+ loving idiots and apparently Trump is the opposite of this.
That guy is finished. The only problem is his opposition have no real policies, no real promises to undo the laws he passed and a candidate that has a rich history of voting with the republicans on some truly despicable bills!
Half-statements and half-threats. That’s the way to conduct business, it seems.
Widespread voting by mail favours Democrats over Republicans. There is a very long history of dirty tricks by both parties.
@David A. Murray: How so?
@David A. Murray: Trump set up a commission to look into Democrat leaning voter fraud after he lost the popular vote in 2016 and lo and behold they couldn’t find anything worth reporting. maybe you have some solid evidence they missed so please share with us..
@Coco86: His supporters don’t know what a pen is!
@David A. Murray: yet there’s a republican operative due for trial for tampering with mail in ballots. Number of Dems on trial 0. The only way it favours Dems is that the more people that vote (legally) the better Dems do. There’s nothing dodgy or unethical about that. On the other hand trying to make it more difficult for people to vote (legally) is both dodgy and unethical.
@David A. Murray: voter fraud is minimal in the US. Gerrymandering on the other hand…
@DJ François: exactly right….for state legislatures and local elections. Both parties are guilty.
Gerrymandering makes no difference in a presidential election because it goes by state lines however higher turnout usually favors the democratic candidate and republicans know the more voter suppression/difficult they make it for poorer people to vote the better the republican/conservative candidate does against the democratic candidate.
@Coco86: Sorry, but I assumed my criticism of Republicans and Trump was obvious. Postal votes meaning greater support for Democrats has been very widely covered over the last 2 years. Trump/GOP have fought against postal voting.
@David A. Murray: Okay, my original comment was badly worded and very unclear. Post voting rebalances GOP dirty tactics to suppress Democratic votes. That’s what I meant, but failed to communicate.
@David A. Murray: And it is true that both parties manipulate the voting system and engage in dirty tricks. This is historical record, not accusations. So my current sympathy for Democrats is completely relative.
@David A. Murray: Well, to have people with rifles in the South who are deciding who is allowed to go to the ballots might be a reason…
@Coco86: Because Democrats are more likely to be more able to put an X in the box
@David A. Murray: The last voting by mail “anomalie” favoured republicans but any way, you keeping spouting Donalds conspiracy theories
The movie idiocracy is so relevant now , from the Whitehouse down . It is an embarrassment to the human race .
Wun wabbit, wun wabbit, wun wun wun …
Postal votes… sounds legit!
* Yes, I am aware postal votes have been allowed for certain segments of voters to date, but a blind man can see the reasons for the attempted widespread implementation of them now. I ain’t no Trump fan but he’s correct to think this may be an attempt to subvert democratic process.
@Brian McHale-Boyle: Emm…yes. It says so right there in the article. Postal voting is recommended by the CDC as a safe option of voting during the pandemic.
@Dec Quinlan: LOL The CDC recommend? A truly impartial and apolitical organization, I’m sure. Dream on.
@Brian McHale-Boyle: This is just another Trump diversion tactic. Nobody is getting a presidential election “ballot” in the mail yet. The election is in November and It’s not even June yet, the Democratic Party candidate hasn’t even been confirmed, so ballots haven’t even been printed yet.
Every citizen is entitled to make an ‘application’ to register for absentee mail-in ballots for any upcoming state, local or federal elections and with the covid19 crisis more people are now looking to vote by mail.
What’s bothering Trump? he is so low in the polls he’s worried a high turnout/votes cast will be bad for him. He himself votes by mail but he doesn’t want that convenience to be afforded to so many people who will probably vote against him.
Trump is just worried that if it’s
@Brian McHale-Boyle: at first glance, I would broadly agree with your point. But then i saw that Trump, as an official Palm Beach County resident, voted by mail in the Florida presidential primaries in March – presumably for himself – while at the same time screaming that noone else should be allowed to do so. His objection to it is 100% self-serving.
@Diaspora’d: Trump had a 1.2% chance of winning the Presidency according to “the polls”. How did that work out? It’s all propaganda.
If you can’t look beyond your dislike of Trump and see what’s going on here, then it’s true that mass media propaganda works.
I dislike Trump. But I really despise cheap propaganda tactics and attempts to subvert democracy.
@Brian McHale-Boyle: the effort to suppress turnout is being instigated by Trump and the GOP. I live in a state where voters including myself had to queue for 2 hours to vote because Trump and the GOP wanted a recent election to go ahead during the covid19 lockdown because the usual number of polling stations were reduced and voters had to travel to polling stations further away. Trump and the GOP thought this would suppress turnout so the GOP/conservative candidates would win. It turned out that the “anybody but Trump” sentiment is rising and the conservative candidates lost.
Trump is in trouble and he knows.
@Diaspora’d: I am NOT disputing that there are constant attempts to affect polling numbers and also gerrymander from BOTH parties.
I AM saying that this postal voting move is a little “too obvious” and needs to be called out for what it is.
*I am not a Trump supporter and ridiculous that I am receiving horrific DMs and threats to Dox me to my twitter account merely for saying that he may have a point.
@Brian McHale-Boyle: the whole “widespread voter fraud by mail” thing is a myth.
The more people who can vote in an election the better in my opinion. I normally vote in person in every state and federal election but if I know I won’t be in town, I “apply” a week or two in advance and get a mail-in ballot. The system has been working fine for years. Trump is bringing it up now as an issue because it’s in his and the GOPs interest to get a low turnout.
@Brian McHale-Boyle: US military who work overseas have been voting by post for decades. Absentee voting also happens by mail and it’s a secure process. There is far more fraud to be had with electronic voting machines than with paper ballots, and Trump knows this. That’s why he doesn’t like paper, it leaves a trail.
@Brian McHale-Boyle: which party has an operative awaiting trial for interfering with mail in ballots?
That’s a good sign. He must be clutching at straws.
@Gerald OBrien: he usually is.
I’m still convinced that if he loses in November (I don’t think he will unfortunately) he won’t give up the office voluntarily.
This is very dangerous talk. He’s planting the seed that these votes are suspect before the election even takes place. If he loses, he already has his excuse baked in. There will be legal challenges after that, and then the question of if he will leave office peacefully. Either way it’s a long road and it could be a major effort to wrest power away from this nutcase.
Any chance of a Trump filter on the Journal pretty please.
Oh, no, I didn’t scream that I hate Trump enough, so that must mean that I support him, so it looks like my opinion has been cancelled. No thumbs up for Brian! /sadface emoji
My voter’s in the post, baby!
@Brian McHale-Boyle: eh?
@Brian McHale-Boyle: Do you need attention Brian?
You’d have to hand it to Trump. He knows that no matter what he says or does the clowns that vote for him will continue to do so.
I’ve seen excrement that is more appealing.
Didn’t Nero fiddle while Rome burned?
Or is it the Queen in Snow White?
” yes i told everybody again today how great I really am”
I like how Trump has strategically assigned his vote to the biggest swing state of them all. Just in case. Text book stable genius move.
have your say