Following rumors and preparations, Chinese tech giant Alibaba has finalized all its affairs and plans to go live on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on August 8th 2014.
Alibaba’s IPO is expected to be one of the biggest to hit the NYSE. With an estimated value of $168 billion, Alibaba will be the third largest tech company listed on the New York Stock Exchange following listings from International Business Machines Corp. and Oracle Corp..
The decision to be listed on the 222 year old NYSE comes as a blow to the NASDAQ, which was one of the markets interested in launching Alibaba’s IPO. Alibaba’s public offering helps instil the New York Stock Exchange’s new foray as a tech oriented market exchange.
“The momentum shifts back and forth between the two exchanges as far as IPO wins, and now it’s shifted back to the NYSE,” saidRichard Repetto, an analyst for investment banking firm Sandler O’Neill & Partners LP to Bloomberg.
In the filing mentioning the NYSE as the home for Alibaba’s IPO, the finalized ticker was also reviled. The ticker “BABA” was chosen to represent Alibaba’s stock.
The use of BABA, beyond being linked to the company’s name was also chosen for representing the number 8 in Chinese, “ba”. 8 is a lucky number in China and is also referenced for sounding similar to the word for prosperity, “fa”, in Chinese.
Keeping with the “8” theme, the IPO date is currently set for August 8th (8/8). There is mention of the possibility of a weak market and internal factors which could see the IPO being pushed back to September, but if all goes to plan August 8th will be the date Alibaba goes live on the exchange.
We will be posting more on Alibaba's upcoming IPO as more information is released.
