Alibaba, China's largest e-commerce firm, filed an amendment with the SEC on Thursday stating its intention to list on the NYSE under the symbol BABA. Since its initial filing on May 6, the media has only been able to speculate on whether it would choose the NASDAQ or NYSE. The latter had been the expected choice.
Chinese rival JD.com (JD), with which Alibaba shares none of the same underwriters, had listed on the NASDAQ earlier this year. While JD competes directly with its e-commerce business, Alibaba is often referenced in the context of China's three major Internet companies, Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (known as "BAT"), which will now be split up between the NASDAQ, NYSE and Hong Kong Stock Exchange, respectively.
The New York Stock Exchange tends to attract larger IPOs (9 of the 10 largest IPOs in the past 5 years), but the NASDAQ is often considered the preferred choice for technology companies (7 of the 10 largest tech IPOs in the past 5 years, though only 52% of the total). This year, however, the NYSE has listed 20 of the 36 technology IPOs. Driven by record biotechs issuance (all of which are on the NASDAQ), 57% of US IPOs have listed on the NASDAQ, representing 32% of all proceeds raised.
The Hangzhou, China-based company, which was founded in 1999, recorded revenue of $8.4 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2014. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Citi are the joint bookrunners on the initial filing, though we expect more underwriters will be disclosed in later filings. No pricing terms were disclosed, but we expect an IPO could arrive between late July and early August. Alibaba's most recent filing 10 days ago updated the company's financial results for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2014 and disclosed new information about its affiliates.
