Alibaba’s top executives buy US$15m in shares in vote of confidence after AI fundraising

Alibaba Group Holding has sold 710 million new shares at HK$112.70 each to raise HK$80 billion (US$10.2 billion) in one of the largest artificial intelligence-dedicated fundraising efforts by a Chinese technology firm.

The offer price represented an 8.4 per cent discount to the stock’s closing price in Hong Kong on Friday and a 3.6 per cent discount to the Friday closing price of its New York-listed shares, the company said in a stock exchange filing on Monday.

The 710 million newly issued shares represented around 3.7 per cent of the company’s 19.17 billion total outstanding shares. Alibaba is the owner of the South China Morning Post.

The placement, Alibaba’s first primary share issuance since its 2019 secondary listing in Hong Kong, drew fierce investor demand.

The order book exceeded the US$10 billion target shortly after launch, attracting US$28 billion in demand to leave the deal nearly three times oversubscribed, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Anchor demand came from leading sovereign wealth funds across the Middle East, Europe and Asia, they said.