Alibaba Group has announced the launch of its Hong Kong public offering, part of the global offering of 500m new ordinary shares and listing of its ordinary shares on The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited. The total number of shares available could be adjusted to up to a maximum of 50m new shares. In addition, the company expects to grant the international underwriters an option to purchase up to an additional 75m new shares. The Public Retail Offering will close at 12:00 noon on Wednesday, November 20, 2019, Hong Kong time. The prospectus is available at the website of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the company’s website.
The company’s American depositary shares, each representing eight ordinary shares of the company, will continue to be listed and traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Upon listing in Hong Kong, the Hong Kong-listed shares will be fully fungible with the ones listed on the NYSE.
Daniel Zhang, Alibaba Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said: “Alibaba aims to serve global consumers, including over 1bn of Chinese consumers, and facilitate more than RMB10 trillion (around €1.3 trillion) of consumption on platform within the next five years by continuing to pursue globalisation, domestic consumption and big data powered by cloud computing. Hong Kong is a major financial centre and we are grateful for the opportunity to participate in its future.” The company plans to use the proceeds from the offering to drive user growth and engagement, empowering businesses to facilitate digital transformation, and innovate and invest.
The offer price for the Public Retail Offering will be no more than HK$188 per share (around €21.7), however the offer price for the international offering tranche of the offering may be set higher than this. The company will set the International Offer Price by November 20, 2019 Hong Kong time. Shares will be traded in board lots of 100 shares each.
It is hoped that the listing will allow more of the company’s users and stakeholders in the Alibaba’s digital economy across Asia to invest and participate in the company’s growth. Furthermore, there is hope that the offering will tap into new capital pools in Asia and create a fast market for global investors to trade Alibaba’s shares.
Alibaba will use electronic application process in order to minimise its environmental impact.
China International Capital Corporation Hong Kong Securities Limited and Credit Suisse (Hong Kong) Limited are the joint sponsors and joint global coordinators for the proposed offering. Citigroup Global Markets Asia Limited, J.P. Morgan Securities (Asia Pacific) Limited and Morgan Stanley Asia Limited are also joint global coordinators.
Source: Alibaba Group
