Alibaba has launched a $10.2 billion share placement to fund its artificial intelligence expansion. The deal ranks as the largest-ever primary follow-on offering by a Hong Kong-listed company, according to Reuters. The company priced 710 million new shares at HK$112.70 each for the Alibaba share sale.
It was priced at a discount of 3.6% based on the close of last Friday.
Alibaba said it would direct 100% of net proceeds to full-stack AI capabilities, covering chips, infrastructure, and the development as well as deployment of AI models.
The Alibaba share sale would rank as the world’s third-largest primary follow-on share sale this year, behind offerings from Alphabet and Intel.
The offering met strong demand, and Alibaba increased its size after it was oversubscribed, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Reuters shared that the people could not be named as the information was not public.
Reuters also shared that Alibaba shares have dipped by 8% this Monday.
Featured image edited by Fintech News Hong Kong based on an image by lifeforstock on Magnific