Jack Ma Yun, the chairman and chief executive of Alibaba Group, is getting a freer rein to chart the course of developing the e-commerce empire he co-founded in 1999 after scooping a pair of major deals this week.
Alibaba's proposal to privatise its Hong Kong-listed subsidiary Alibaba.com, the world's largest business-to-business e-commerce services provider, was overwhelmingly approved yesterday at a special shareholders meeting.
That followed an agreement hammered out between Alibaba and Yahoo on Monday for the Chinese company to buy in stages the 40 per cent stake in Alibaba owned by Yahoo, the struggling internet search pioneer. Their deal also offered incentives for Alibaba to consider an initial public offering by late 2015.
Qi Jianzhe, an analyst at mainland internet market research firm Analysys International, said: 'These are positive factors that will help the Alibaba Group obtain ideal market value in the future.'
At the meeting yesterday, 95.5 per cent of the outstanding Alibaba.com shares were voted in favour of taking the subsidiary private, after a run of less than five years as a public company. It listed in Hong Kong in November 2007.
The next step for Alibaba.com is to seek approval of the privatisation plan from the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands at a petition hearing on June 15. Both Alibaba and its subsidiary were incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Once the move is sanctioned by that court, Alibaba.com's listing will be withdrawn on June 20.