Open Sesame!
Move over Facebook… Alibaba is here, with the biggest IPO ever in the United States.
Yesterday (18 September 2014), Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant has had the biggest IPO in the United States ever. At $68 a share, it raised $21.8 billion! So who or what is Alibaba? And where are the 40 thieves?
This is Alibaba Group’s mission statement:
According to Alibaba.com:
“Launched in 1999, Alibaba.com is the leading platform for global wholesale trade. We serve millions of buyersand suppliers around the world. We do this by giving suppliers the tools necessary to reach a global audience for their products, and by helping buyers find products and suppliers quickly and efficiently. Alibaba.com brings you hundreds of millions of products in over 40 different major categories, including consumer electronics, machinery and apparel. Buyers for these products are located in 190+ countries and regions, and exchange hundreds of thousands of messages with suppliers on the platform each day. As a platform, we continue to develop services to help businesses do more and discover new opportunities. Whether it’s sourcing from your mobile phone or contacting suppliers in their local language, turn to Alibaba.com for all your global business needs.”
In its IPO prospectus, Alibaba says it has 279 million online customers who spend nearly $300 billion on the company’s sites. By those metrics, it would be the largest online and mobile seller in the world.
Does it have an India connection?
It has connections all over the world. We went to the “Apparel, Textiles and Accessories” section on alibaba.com and found the ‘India & Pakistan Clothing’sub-section. Here have a look.
In fact, we went to Alibaba India subsite and had a look. This is it.
OK, here’s a short history of Alibaba and the story of its IPO and the millionaires it will create today as soon as the New York Stock Exchange opens for business.
Who is Jack Ma?
Jack Ma is the founder of Alibaba, and today, he just became the richest man in China, with a net worth of $21.9 billion. This is a man who was rejected in his youth by KFC and other employers in his hometown of Hangzhou in east China. He believed in the Internet’s business potential when few other Chinese did. Outlandish ideas earned him the nickname “Crazy Jack Ma.”
No one thinks he’s mad now, even when dressing in wild wigs and lipstick for his annual meeting where he serenades a stadium full of Alibaba employees. Here’s more about him.
And whose records have Alibaba broken?
This story is right out of The Arabian Nights.