A buying frenzy sent Alibaba shares sharply higher yesterday as the Chinese online giant made its historic Wall Street trading debut.
In early trades after the record public share offering, Alibaba leapt from an opening price of $68 to nearly $100 and, while it dropped back, was still up some 38 per cent at $94.08 after 10 minutes.
By raising as much as $25 billion, Chinese online giant Alibaba is poised to break the record for the largest initial public offering (IPO) in history.
Priced at $68 a share, Alibaba has raised $21.7bn with the offering of 320 million shares.
If underwriters exercise the option for 48m additional shares, the amount would top $25bn, breaking the 2010 record set by China’s AgBank of $22.1bn.
