Alibaba Group, the Chinese ecommerce giant whose subsidiaries include Olympic Games ticketing services provider Damai Sport, has raised $11.3bn in the opening hours of its secondary listing in Hong Kong.
Alibaba’s stock jumped 6.6% on its first day on the Hang Seng Index on Tuesday, with investors snapping up shares at the initial price of HK$176 ($23) each. The group issued 500 million new ordinary shares plus 75 million potential extras.
Ahead of its Hong Kong debut, the company – which has been trading on the New York Stock Exchange since 2014 – said the listing would allow investors across Asia to “participate in Alibaba’s growth,” as it seeks to tap “substantial new capital pools” in the region.
The share sale has knocked Uber off the top spot as this year’s biggest IPO, according to Dealogic data. The ride-sharing firm raised $8.1bn in its New York float in May.
Alibaba still holds the world record for the largest initial public offering after raising $25bn through its New York stock market debut in 2014. It completed its acquisition of Damai Sports in 2017.
Alibaba will run ticketing for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics through Damai after signing a landmark deal with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) earlier this year. The Worldwide Olympic Partner will provide a fully digitally enabled ticketing programme through its agreement with the IOC and the Beiing 2022 organising committee. Local organising committees have previously run ticketing programmes themselves, although this has often courted controversy.
Damai recently launched the official ticketing platform of Chinese basketball and has previously provided ticketing services for the Fiba World Cup in China and the Wuhan Military Games.
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