Chinese e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba announced its maiden US outing with an IPO filing that could value the company at approximately $200 billion, according to T he New York Times.
Alibaba, which powers four-fifths of all online commerce conducted in the world’s second-largesteconomy, is expected to raise upward of $15 billion and potentially surpass the $16 billion thatFacebookmanaged in 2012. It will become the largest Chinese corporation to have sought a home on U.S. exchanges
The valuations of other internet companies pales in comparison to Alibaba’s numbers. At the time of its IPO, Facebook (2012) was valued at $104 billion, Twitter (2013) at $25 billion and Google (2004) at $23 billion, as is seen in the chart below.
(Note: Alibaba’s valuation is speculative as concrete figures have not been released)
In terms of present market capitalisation, Google leads the pack by a mile, with a market-cap of $352 billion. A very far second is Facebook ($150 billion) and e-tailer Amazon ($137 billion).
Alibaba handled more than 1.5 trillionyuan, or about $248 billion, of transactions for 231 million active users across its three main Chinese online marketplaces in 2013, more than Amazon andeBaycombined.
Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup will underwrite the IPO.
Alibaba, founded 15 years ago in a one-room apartment in Hangzhou and controlled by a 28-member partnership, boasts of building a company that will last “at least 102 years”.
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More ShortsWith inputs from Reuters



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