Alibaba Confirms New York Share Sale Plans

Chinese online powerhouse Alibaba has filed for a public share sale in the United States - a flotation that could become one of the biggest seen in the country.

The company, which currently makes more money than Amazon and eBay combined, said its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in New York would seek to raise at least $1bn but the figure was seen by analysts as a random sum given its ambitions.

Market experts believe the target would more likely surpass the $16bn that Facebook and its early investors raised two years ago.

Alibaba did not say whether it would use the New York Stock Exchange or the tech-based Nasdaq for the listing.

The Group is a privately-owned firm which incorporates a search engine, business-to-business web portals, online retail sites, payment service platforms and cloud computing services.

It was started in 1999 with just $60,000 in the apartment of Jack Ma, a former English school teacher with no previous experience in business or technology.

Its growth matches that of China's own economy in terms of scale.

Alibaba enjoyed profits of $2.9bn on revenue of nearly $6.5bn through the first nine months of its last fiscal year ending in March.

That topped the combined earnings of $2.4bn posted during the same April-December stretch by eBay and Amazon.

A 40% investment by Yahoo! - since reduced to 26% - aided Alibaba's competitive position in China to the extent that eBay abandoned the country in 2006, just four years after breaking into the Chinese market.

Alibaba's success has provided a financial lifeline for Yahoo!, whose stake in the Chinese company is the main reason its own stock price has more than doubled in the past two years.

It is expected to sell more than 200 million shares at the time of the IPO - a core reason why many analysts believe the flotation will seek to the raise close to the record $18bn enjoyed by Visa.

However, the timing of the listing will be seen as crucial, with several high profile IPOs falling flat in recent times amid pressure on tech stocks over fears some service-based firms are overvalued.

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