Alibaba Shares To Be Priced For Record Sale

The Chinese e-marketplace Alibaba has priced its stock at $68 (£42) a share, setting in motion a record-breaking public offering of up to $25bn.

The company will start trading later today on the New York Stock Exchange, according to documents filed with US regulators.

The amount raised by the initial public offering (IPO) would be $25.02bn if options are exercised for additional demand, breaking the 2010 record of China's AgBank of $22.1bn.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma is expected to ring the opening bell on Wall Street for the market debut.

Alibaba would have a market value of around $168bn based on the price, making it bigger than US rival Amazon.

In the 15 years since Ma founded the company in his one-bedroom apartment, Alibaba has come to power four-fifths of all online commerce conducted in China, the world's second-largest economy.

It has also branched out into areas such as e-payments and financial investment and Ma intends to use the proceeds of the sale to boost his expansion plans in the US and in Europe.

But while appetite for the stock is apparently very strong, some investors worry about Alibaba's complex governance structure and Ma's outside investments raising potential conflicts of interest.

Owners of Alibaba's stock will also have a very limited ability to sway Alibaba's strategy.

The company decided to list its shares in New York after Hong Kong stock exchange officials rejected its request to allow a small group of company insiders to nominate the majority of the board.