Alibaba F-1
sec.gov
sec.gov
Turns out reading these is actually useful, I had no idea they issued microloans.
One note: <another comment posted here is inaccurate>. Their microloan business is not called AliPay (AliPay is the Chinese version of Paypal from Alibaba).
Jack Ma spoke on it last year at Stanford - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRp4jiJed3c
My prediction: Alibaba is on a path to take over the world. In the next 5 years the startup and silicon valley landscape will change dramatically with the introduction of Alibaba as a major player stateside.
Yahoo will be bought, all these spree acquisitions and product dev based on borrowed time and money (ironically from Alibaba) is to walk away with as much money from Alibaba when that inevitable moment happens. Maybe that's why Marissa Meyer has such confidence.
If you work on anything tangential and remotely related to ecommerce, enterprise, or logistics, at scale--the type of scale that can actually impress a man that has the indirect democratic approval of a a nation composed of a billion people--you now have an additional avenue for exit aside from Amazon.
Alibaba will become an American household name overnight, that took 15 years to happen.
I couldn't ask about some sources/information on this? I've only been tangentially aware of alibaba, reading the odd news story here and there, I'd be interested to hear what has inspired such strong words on the subject as that makes me think maybe there's something I'm missing about them.
Then look at this http://qz.com/206283/all-the-western-companies-youd-have-to-...
What will be interesting from the IPO would be to know if there is a single cash cow (like Google's Adwords) or if theres are more healthy split
Reading up on Jack Ma is time well spent.
Didn't he retire from Alibaba? He's listed as the CEO on the F-1 so I presume not but he announced his intention to step down quite publicly at some point.
:p
"""The negotiations foundered after regulators decided they would not allow Alibaba's partners to retain control over board nominations, maintaining that all shareholders should be treated equally, sources said.""" [+]
So does that mean that the SEC is going to allow them control? Does that mean HKSE is better governed than NYSE?
[+] http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSL4N0HL10H20130925?irpc...
Share classes with different voting rights are nothing new. Recent high-profile examples are Google and Facebook, but there are myriad other examples, like Dow Jones prior to the Murdoch takeover, Comcast, and Berkshire Hathaway.
As long as it's disclosed, publicly-traded companies in the US can be structured pretty much however they want.
This is not a new trick. It's a longstanding loophole in the Chinese law barring foreign ownership of certain companies. But it's also not exactly risk-free: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/i-p-o-revives-debate-...
Also a tough time for a tech company to go public since the general marketplace seems pretty overpriced as it is these days. The fact that Alibaba is an established business with history should help it perform well on IPO day.
I would have assumed more like $20-30B.
"In its initial document, Alibaba said it was raising $1 billion, but that is only a placeholder and will surely change. Demand from investors is likely to be high and analysts have estimated that Alibaba would raise $15 billion or more at a valuation of close to $200 billion."