Alibaba Raises $8 billion Of Investments

Alibaba Group Executive Chairman Jack Ma gestures as he speaks to media and staff in front of a giant electronic screen showing real-time sales figures of the company's Taobao.com and Tmall.com, on the "Singles' Day" online shopping festival, at the company headquarters in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province November 11, 2014.

 

 

SINGAPORE (IFR) - Alibaba Group Holding <baba.n> sold the largest bond by an Asian company last night via a $8 billion six-tranche offering. The tight pricing achieved on the deal led many to believe the US-listed Chinese ecommerce giant got away without paying a Chinese premium.
“The pricing on Alibaba’s bonds did not reflect a China risk premium in our view, and was priced more like a US credit, given the solid demand from the US investor base and hype around the IPO,” said Raymond Lee, Sydney-based portfolio manager at Kapstream Capital, one of Australia’s largest fixed-income managers.
Over the course of the 24-hour three-timezone bookbuilding, orders topped at US$57bn before settling at close to US$55bn. US investors anchored the trade by taking about three-quarters of the notes, two sources familiar with the transaction said. The company hasn’t disclosed the distribution statistics.
“It is a defining trade not just for the sheer size, but the fact that it got priced against a peer group in a developed market,” said a person familiar with the matter.
Alibaba bonds priced through some of the US blue chip tech giants such as Amazon <amzn.o> and eBay <ebay.o>. Its US$1.5bn 7-year tranche, priced at 115bp over Treasuries, came inside Amazon’s 2022s, quoted at a G-spread of 116bp. Its US$2.25bn 10-year, priced at 128bp over, also easily pierced through eBay’s interpolated curve.
    No wonder the Ceo is china`s richest!!!!!