The founder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, has stated that his company, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, will “seriously consider” becoming listed in Hong Kong. This will provide a great thrust to the financial hub which is already making preparations to allow dual-class share listings.
Speaking at a city event, Hong Kong Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, stated her expectation for Alibaba to return to Hong Kong. Responding to Lam’s speech, Ma stated, “Daring to speak like this marks a strong commitment, so we will definitely seriously consider the Hong Kong market.”
Ma met with President Emmanuel Macron, and during the meeting, he commented that Alibaba was considering listing its subsidiaries in Hong Kong. An Alibaba spokesperson said that there are no additional details available on what the listing plan in Hong Kong entails.
After Hong Kong initially refused to accept the governance structure of Alibaba, the company held its record of $25 billion public float in New York in 2014. Hong Kong noted that the governance structure had a group of senior managers who controlled the majority of board appointments.
However, Hong Kong is all geared up to allow dual-class shares, as proposed by the city’s stock exchange. Recently, over $3 billion worth of Alibaba shares were traded, and the stock price closed at $190.33 with around 16.23 million shares being traded.