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BEIJING / BLOOMBERG
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has set the fees it’s offering to banks on its loan of upto $4 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.
China’s largest online emporium is offering 60 basis points to lenders committing $200 million and above to the facility, which banks are starting to market from $3 billion, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the details are private. It’s offering 50 basis points for commitments between $150 million and $190 million, and 40 basis points for participation of $100 million to $140 million, the people said.
Alibaba, which plans to conduct a roadshow in Hong Kong on Thursday, will also pay an early bird fee of 5 basis points for the banks joining the syndication by April 1, the people said. The official deadline for participation is April 8, they said.
Bob Christie, a spokesman for Alibaba, declined to comment.
Alibaba said in a U.S. regulatory filing on March 9 that it signed a $3 billion five-year loan with a group of eight banks and may boost its size depending on demand from other lenders. The loan will pay 110 basis points more than the London interbank offered rate, according to the filing.
The eight lenders are Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group AG, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Mizuho Financial Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, people familiar with the matter said last week. Alibaba plans to use the proceeds to finance merger and acquisition investments, said a separate person familiar with the matter last week.
Alibaba Group Holding Limited is a Chinese e-commerce company that provides consumer-to-consumer,
business-to-consumer and business-to-business sales services via web portals. It also provides electronic payment services, ashopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services.
The group began in 1999 when Jack Ma founded the website Alibaba.com, a business-to-business portal to connect Chinese manufacturers with overseas buyers. In 2012, two of Alibaba’s portals handled 1.1 trillion yuan ($170 billion) in sales. Suppliers from other countries are supported, but the company primarily operates in China.
(PRC). At closing time on the date of its initial public offering (IPO), 19 September 2014, Alibaba’s market value was US$231 billion.
However, the stock has traded down and market cap was about $212 billion at the end of December 2015.