MonitorAlibaba's plan to stuff board hardly in investors' interests

For the founders of successful companies, going public with a stock exchange listing is often a deeply traumatic experience.

From being the absolute masters of their creation, suddenly they are no longer fully in charge. Instead, they are set about with inconvenient rules and badgered by investment bankers, lawyers and accountants, all telling them what to do.

Worst of all, they find they now have to deal with a host of small shareholders; an awkward bunch who clearly don't appreciate how privileged they are to be allowed to invest in the founders' company, and who might even think they are entitled to a say in how the business is run.

Many bosses deeply resent the imposition, and even though they want the advantages of a public listing, they try to retain as much control over their company as they possibly can.

For example, when Google went public in 2004, it did so with two classes of shares; a device which allowed the management to keep control of 60 per cent of the company's voting power.

The founders of Alibaba, the privately held mainland internet retail giant planning an estimated HK$100 billion offering on the Hong Kong stock exchange, would like to do something similar.