Alibaba launches HK$80 billion share placement

Alibaba announced the launch of an HK$80-billion (US$10.2 billion) share placement on Monday, aiming to fund AI-related development. Shares of the Chinese e-commerce giant fell by 8 percent to HK$113.00 upon the stock market's opening. The placement would be the largest primary follow-on offering by a Hong Kong-listed company and the third-largest global primary follow-on share sale this year, after Alphabet and Intel.

The proceeds would be used entirely for expanding Alibaba's AI capabilities, including chips, infrastructure, and model development. A term sheet revealed Alibaba planned to sell 710 million ordinary shares at HK$112.70 each, a 3.6 percent discount from Friday's closing price. The company did not disclose further details on AI investment categories or its expected payback period on AI-related investments, which it projected to fall to 2.5 years from three years.

Alibaba's net profit for the April-to-June quarter fell 75 percent from the previous year as it increased AI-related capital expenditures. CEO Eddie Wu stated, "In order to be able to capture that future growth, we first need to make these capex investments to build out the necessary compute capacity." The share placement attracted strong interest from investors, including sovereign wealth funds, but was ineligible for American investors due to not being registered under US securities laws as an offshore transaction.