Alibaba's magic carpet takes punters to treasure trove
If entrepreneur and former English-language teacher Jack Ma Yun was a cinema screenwriter, we reckon an apt title for his breakout hit would be Ali Baba and the Forty Big Ones.
Yesterday, Mr Ma's dotcom debutante Alibaba.com ended its first trading day at HK$39.50, up a magical 190 per cent from its initial public offer price of HK$13.50.
Alibaba was easily the best-performing offering this year and its more than 560,000 shareholders are each levitating on a paper profit of HK$13,000 per board lot - assuming they didn't cash out yesterday.
Alibaba's billing as the biggest internet share sale since Google - combined with its exposure to the uber-hot mainland market - meant institutional investors were still keen to join the magic carpet ride despite a hefty valuation of more than 100 times price to historical earnings.
While punters who got a piece of the offering might like to celebrate by treating themselves to a shark's fin dinner, they won't be joined by Mr Ma. Asked yesterday by a foreign reporter why shark fins were being sold on Alibaba's business-to-business website, Mr Ma passed the question to his executives, but did add: 'I swear my family and I will not eat shark fins.'
