NEW YORK - Alibaba's stock is surging as the Chinese e-commerce powerhouse begins its first day trading as a public company.<br />
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The stock opened at $92.70 and nearly hit $100 on the New York Stock Exchange Friday, a gain of 46 percent from the initial $68 per share price set Thursday evening.<br />
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At Friday's opening price, the company is worth $228.5 billion, more than companies such as Amazon, Ebay and even Facebook.<br />
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Jubilant CEO Jack Ma stood on the NYSE trading floor Friday as eight Alibaba customers, including an American cherry farmer and a Chinese Olympian, rang the opening bell from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.<br />
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"We want to be bigger than Wal-Mart," Ma told CNBC shortly after the opening Bell. "We hope in 15 years people say this is a company like Microsoft, IBM, Wal-Mart, they changed, shaped the world."<br />
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On Thursday, Alibaba and the investment bankers arranging the IPO settled on a price of $68 per share. The company and its early investors raised $21.8 billion in the offering, which valued Alibaba at $168 billion in one of the world's biggest ever initial public offerings.<br />
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But after a two-hour trading delay due to strong demand, it opened much higher than that price.<br />
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Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba will say "open sesame" to the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, as its shares begin trading in a highly anticipated debut that could raise up to $25 billion.<br />
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The company priced its initial public offering of stock Thursday evening at $68 per share, the top end of the expected price range, according to Alibaba. The shares will trade under the ticker "BABA" on the NYSE. The IPO values Alibaba at $167.62 billion. That's bigger than the current market value of companies such as Amazon, Cisco, and eBay.<br />
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The company has enjoyed a surge in U.S. popularity over the past two weeks as investors met with executives, including its colorful founder Jack Ma. As part of the so-called roadshow, would-be investors heard a sales pitch that centered on Alibaba's strong revenue growth and seemingly endless possibilities for expansion. Demand has been so high that the company raised its expected offering price to $66 to $68 per share from $60 to $66 per share on Monday, setting the stage for what could be the biggest ever IPO.<br />
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Alibaba said it is offering 320.1 million shares for a total offering size of $21.77 billion. Underwriters have a 30-day option to buy up to about 48 million more shares. That means the offering size could be as much as $25 billion.<br />
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The main reason investors appear breathless about the 15-year old Alibaba: It offers an investment vehicle that taps into China's burgeoning middle-class.<br />
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Alibaba's Taobao, TMall and other platforms account for some 80 percent of Chinese online commerce. Most of Alibaba's 279 million active buyers visit the sites at least once a month on smartphones and other mobile devices, making the company attractive to investors as computing shifts away from laptop and desktop machines.<br />
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And the growth rate is not expected to mature anytime soon. Online spending by Chinese shoppers is forecast to triple from its 2011 size by 2015. Beyond that, Alibaba has said it plans to expand into emerging markets and eventually, Europe and the U.S.<br />
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"There are very few companies that are this big, grow this fast, and are this profitable," said Wedbush analyst Gil Luria.<br />
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Alibaba operates an online ecosystem that lets individuals and small businesses buy and sell. It doesn't directly sell anything, compete with its merchants, or hold inventory.
