Alibaba Group Holding Limited announced the launch of its Hong Kong public offering (the“Public Retail Offering”), which forms part of the global offering of 500,000,000 new ordinary shares and listing of its ordinary shares on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited under the stock code “9988.”
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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 ADSs listed on the NYSE.
“Alibaba is guided by our mission to make it easy to do business anywhere with the vision to be a good company that lasts for 102 years. We aim to serve global consumers, of which more than 1 billion will be Chinese consumers, and facilitate more than RMB10 trillion of consumption on our platform within the next five years by continuing to pursue our three strategic pillars of globalization, domestic consumption and big data powered by cloud computing,” said Daniel Zhang, Alibaba Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
“Hong Kong is one of the world’s most important financial centers and we are grateful for the opportunity to participate in the future of Hong Kong,” continued Daniel Zhang.
The listing in Hong Kong will allow more of the Company’s users and stakeholders in the Alibaba digital economy across Asia to invest and participate in Alibaba’s growth. In addition to expanding the Company’s overall investor base, the Offering will tap into substantial new capital pools in Asia and create a nearly round-the-clock market for global investors to trade Alibaba shares.
The Offering initially comprises 12,500,000 new Shares under the Public Retail Offering and 487,500,000 new Shares for subscription globally (the “International Offering”). Subject to the level of any oversubscription in the Public Retail Offering and pursuant to the clawback mechanism as described in the prospectus issued in Hong Kong, the total number of shares available under the Public Retail Offering could be adjusted to up to a maximum of 50,000,000 new Shares, representing 10.0% of total Shares initially available under the Offering.
In addition, the Company expects to grant the international underwriters an over-allotment option to purchase up to an additional 75,000,000 new Shares.
The offer price for the Public Retail Offering (the “Public Retail Offer Price”) will be no more than HK$188.00 per share (the “Maximum Public Retail Offer Price”). The offer price for the international offering tranche of the Offering (the “International Offer Price”) may be set higher than the Maximum Public Retail Offer Price.
The Company will set the International Offer Price by 20th November, 2019 Hong Kong time by taking into consideration, among other factors, the closing price of the ADSs on the NYSE on or before the last trading date and investor demand during the marketing process. The final Public Retail Offer Price will be set at the lower of the final International Offer Price and the Maximum Public Retail Offer Price of HK$188.00 per share. Shares will be traded in board lots of 100 shares each.
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The Company plans to use the proceeds from the Offering for the implementation of its strategies of driving user growth and engagement, empowering businesses to facilitate digital transformation, and continuing to innovate and invest for the long term.