Alibaba going for a higher selling price just makes the continued undervaluing of Yahoo itself increasingly hilarious. At some point, I would think someone will want to buy them for all of this free money they have sitting around.<p><pre><code> YHOO market cap : 42.3bn
+ liabilities : 3.7bn
= 46bn (to own outright)
</code></pre>
Meanwhile:<p><pre><code> Cash on hand = 1.1bn
+ Other assets = 15.3bn
+ Cash from Alibaba sale = 8.3bn
+ Value of remaining Alibaba stock = 22bn
+ Value of Yahoo Japan stock = 9bn
= 55.7bn (of value, if you can unlock it)
</code></pre>
So simply by buying them, firing everyone and selling everything in a firesale, without even cashing those checks from advertisers, you can make $9.7bn. Seems like a sweet deal.
Gosh....that's barely more than WhatsApp. Woulda done better selling it to Facebook.<p>More seriously, the Economist put a valuation at $55-$120b. This puts it at $168b. Or 9 WhatsApps. The IPO was expected to raise $20b, so this is really good.<p>It took 3 years after founding in 1998 to reach profitability.<p>It defies most conventional notions of a startup, despite having started in somebody's apartment. It's unbelievably unfocused, it does pretty much every kind of business you can do on the Internet.<p>It might be one of the first Asian-style conglomerates to be born on the Internet.<p>There are plans for it to open brick and mortar stores.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alibaba_Group" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alibaba_Group</a>
Well....you guys have to look at the bigger picture: Alibaba was rejected by HK stock market the first time around, then Jack decided to take it to NYSE. Of course 21B is nothing in comparison to the other big brothers like Facebook, but ask yourself this question: what really is Alibaba doing in China? For one, Alibaba is about trading on the international scene, and its seed Taobao is like eBay China version; then they are into car manufacturing as well, not to mention Alipay being the paypal of modern day China....clearly, that 21B he raised can't even cover a lot of the expenditures for development. What Jack really is doing is to get his company that global recognition. Any of you can name ONE brand/company that based in China on top of your head? Well, that's what Jack is trying to do. You think he's unfocused? How about this: for someone who owns the e-commerce platform of the world's 3rd biggest country, he is utterly focused on becoming "China's international brand." Don't forget, China is the jumping board, and Jack is the pioneer. Once he claimed first, who will remember the ones from the subsequent ranks?
This seems like a pretty bad deal for foreign investors.<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2014/09/15/four-reasons-to-avoid-the-alibaba-ipo/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2014/09/15/four-reasons...</a>
"[Yahoo] will have raised nearly $8.3 billion through the offering"<p>If I'm reading that right Yahoo stands to triple their cash position almost overnight which today stands at around $4b.(1)<p>Given Marissa Meyer's appetite for acquisitions this puts them into a potentially interesting new ballpark of scale.<p>(1) <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=yhoo" rel="nofollow">http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=yhoo</a>
Here's a link to the Alibaba IPO Roadshow Presentation,
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa9R2SqZsHM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa9R2SqZsHM</a><p>I highly recommend watching it. To save time, watch it on Chrome at 2x speed.
Planet Money had a decent piece on Alibaba recently: <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/09/03/345310125/episode-565-the-story-of-alibaba" rel="nofollow">http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/09/03/345310125/episode-...</a>
> Though it did not claim the title of biggest initial public offering ever, Alibaba will still lay claim to having held one of the biggest stock sales on record, surpassing offerings from Facebook and General Motors.<p>If you're curious (I was), Wikipedia puts the Agricultural Bank of China as the largest IPO, with Facebook at number 6.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering#Largest_IPOs" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering#Largest...</a>