Alibaba Nearly Triples Price After IPO

Chinese B2B site is largest e-commerce offering since Google

By Lucas Laursen, Newser Staff

Posted Nov 6, 2007 7:33 AM CST

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Alibaba Nearly Triples Price After IPO — Ma Yun, right, founder and chief operating officer of China's Alibaba.com. limited, and Ronald Arculli, Chairman of Hong Kong Exchange and Clearing toast at the listing ceremony at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2007. Chinese e-commerce portal Alibaba.com made a strong debut on the Hong... (Associated Press)

Chinese business-to-business platform Alibaba held its IPO on the Hong Kong stock market today, nearly tripling in share price in first-day trading. The company raised $1.5 billion (US) by selling just 17% of its shares. "I think Alibaba's share price is way ahead of its fundamentals; I think the best advice is to get out as soon as possible," said one wary investor.

Alibaba’s IPO price was more than 100 times its expected 2007 revenues, compared to between 40 and 50 for Google this year. There were 256 applications for each available share of stock. Yahoo! owns about 40% of parent company Alibaba Group, and also has a share of the site, which links international businesses to Chinese suppliers. (More IPO stories.)

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