Alibaba made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014.
GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images
Alibaba , the Chinese e-commerce giant, said it would apply for a primary listing in Hong Kong.
The listing, Alibaba (ticker: BABA) said in a press release Tuesday, is expected to be completed before the end of 2022. Alibaba would become a dual-primary listed company in Hong Kong and New York, where American depositary shares of the company trade.
Alibaba Chief Executive Daniel Zhang said the company was pursuing the listing in Hong Kong “in the hopes of fostering a wider and more diversified investor base to share in Alibaba’s growth and future, especially from China and other markets in Asia.”
“Hong Kong and New York are both major global financial centers, with shared characteristics of openness and diversity,” Zhang added. “Hong Kong is also the launch pad for Alibaba’s globalization strategy, and we are fully confident in China’s economy and future.”
What Zhang didn’t mention in the press release were the threats from Washington to delist some U.S.-listed Chinese tech stocks. U.S. regulators have threatened the delisting of foreign companies if they don’t comply with U.S. accounting standards. The Wall Street Journal noted that more than 250 Chinese companies including Alibaba face U.S. delisting if the two countries can’t reach an agreement for U.S. regulators to review the financial audits of Chinese companies.
Alibaba made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014, in what then was the biggest-ever initial public offering. It added the Hong Kong secondary listing in 2019.
Alibaba shares traded in Hong Kong closed with a gain of 5.3%. The U.S.-listed shares were rising 4.7% to $105.84 in premarket trading Tuesday; they have declined 14.9% this year.
Write to Joe Woelfel at [email protected]
