Alibaba debut bond is more than five times oversubscribed
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has $43bn (£27.4bn) of orders from investors in yesterday’s debut bond offering, more than five times what it was said to be seeking.
Asia’s biggest internet company planned to sell the debt in a seven-part transaction, sources who asked not to be identified because the details were private told Bloomberg.
Alibaba was planning to raise as much as $8bn to repay a loan, other people with knowledge of the offering said last week.
The company is already believed to have had strong interest in place even before launching its appeal to investors. Sources said there was interest in the range of $10bn.
Alibaba, which went public in September after a record $25bn stock sale, has $11bn in loans and credit lines. It said in a 13 November statement that it would use the proceeds from the bond sale to refinance some credit agreements.
An $8bn sale would eclipse a $6.5bn issue last month by Bank of China to become the biggest dollar-denominated offering by an Asian company.