Chinese e-commerce portal Alibaba.com made a strong debut on the
Hong Kong stock market today, with its shares soaring 137 percent
to 32 Hong Kong dollars (US$4.12) within minutes of its
listing.
Alibaba’s CEO, Jack Ma celebrates
at the listing ceremony at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange,
today.
Demand has been heavy for the business-to-business Website,
which raised more than US$1.5 billion through its global offering
of 858.9 million shares, or a 17 percent stake of the company.
The public portion of its offering was 257 times
oversubscribed.
Some analysts had cautioned that the stock was overpriced at its
issue price of HK$13.5, but investors have been keen to tap into
the booming Chinese technology market.
Alibaba.com said its share sale was the biggest technology IPO
since Google.
"The pent up demand is certainly there," Rick Munarriz, who
researches media and technology companies for The Motley Fool, told
The Associated Press in an e-mail.
"It would be hard to justify a triple or a quadruple (jump) at
this point, but just the fact that you had US$100 billion in orders
chasing US$1.5 billion in stock bodes well for the debut."
By midmorning in Hong Kong, Alibaba.com's shares had retreated
to HK$29.95.
(Shanghai Daily November 6, 2007)
