Alibaba.com, the mainland's largest e-commerce portal, will bring in Taiwan's richest man Terry Guo Tai-ming as a cornerstone investor at its US$1 billion Hong Kong initial public offering, sources said. Mr Guo, chairman of Taiwan-listed Hon Hai Precision Industry and founder of Hong Kong-listed Foxconn International Holdings, is in talks with Alibaba on the details of the deal, sources said. Mr Guo, whose companies make electronic equipment such as mobile phones, is the mainland's largest exporter. He was interested in integrating his business into an e-commerce platform and hoped to make Alibaba his partner, sources said. Yahoo Inc, a major shareholder of Alibaba's parent, will invest HK$780 million in the initial public offering for about 2 per cent, sources said. Alibaba planned to kick off the road show for its deal next Monday and open for retail subscription on October 23. Listing is expected on November 6 Meanwhile, power plant operator GCL-Poly Energy and property developer Zhong'An Real Estate Holdings attended a stock exchange's listing hearing yesterday, sources said. GCL-Poly Energy, which is 21 per cent owned by Hong Kong-listed Poly (Hong Kong) Investments, plans to raise up to US$300 million on the main board, up 50 per cent from its original target of US$200 million due to bullish market sentiment and ample liquidity, one source said. Meanwhile, Zhejiang-based Zhong'An, which specialises in building low-rise homes, is seeking US$350 million as working capital, other sources said. 'Despite relatively high valuations, institutional investors are still keen on property following the successful trading debuts of property stocks such as Soho China and China Aoyuan Group,' said a source. 'The power plant offering is more attractive because of electricity shortages during peak seasons in the mainland,' said a fund manager. According to the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's electricity output rose about 14 per cent in the first half but demand would continue to outstrip supply in some areas. Power generating capacity rose by 20.3 per cent to reach 622 million kilowatts by 2006. Of the total, capacity of hydro-electric power plants rose 9.5 per cent to 128 million kilowatts while capacity of thermal power plants was 484 million kilowatts.
