Underwriters, exchanges, potential investors, and the public at large have waited, and waited, and waited for Alibaba's initial public offering (IPO). I even did an article on the frenzy over the company's IPO in the 30 September 2013 issue of Daily Trust. But no dice - nothing happened.
That is, until last week, when Alibaba finally filed for an IPO in the U.S., in what is predicted to become the biggest in Internet company IPO history. Thus, Alibaba's IPO event is predicted to trump, for internet companies, previous record holder Facebook's $16 billion; the amount that Facebook raised on the day of its IPO on May 18, 2012. At IPO, underwriters set Facebook's stock price at $38 a share, with a valuation of $104 billion. It is predicted that Alibaba will raise $20 billion at IPO, and be valued at $106 billion on that day. With these figures, only 36 U.S. companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Google, Intel, Amazon, and Facebook, will be more valuable than Alibaba.
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