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Bloomberg
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is deciding between launching a sharply reduced $10 billion Hong Kong share sale in November or delaying the deal till next year as global uncertainty mounts, people familiar with the matter say.
China’s largest company is weighing its options for the city’s biggest first-time sale of stock since 2010, but the window for pulling off its mega deal in 2019 is closing fast.
It can proceed with a required listing hearing — either after its November 1 earnings or November 11 Singles’ Day shopping gala — or risk postponing a deal altogether till 2020, people familiar with the matter
say. Alibaba is reluctant to drag things out as uncertainty mounts around US-Chinese tensions and the global macroeconomic outlook, they added, asking not to be identified talking about a sensitive matter.
Alibaba’s listing was to be the crowning achievement of a Hong Kong stock exchange that lost many of China’s brightest technology stars to US rivals.
Instead, pro-democracy and anti-China protests erupted over the summer, rattling the financial hub and hammering mainland-related stocks.
Billionaire Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma’s dream of listing closer to home — a move that would have curried favor with Beijing and hedged against trade war risks — risks back-firing without an offering.
The company is now considering the week after its quarterly earnings release or the country’s largest online retail bonanza as the most likely openings, the people said.