Alibaba 3 times oversubscribed

Alibaba's initial public offering is three times oversubscribed, Hong Kong Economic Journal reported Wednesday.

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd kicked off a 10-day global roadshow on Monday, meeting investors in cities from New York, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles, to Hong Kong, Singapore and London.

The Chinese e-commerce giant may raise about $20 billion, marking the biggest IPO in US history according to Bloomberg.

"The meeting went along without much surprise, in a hotel all packed with investors," an Asia-based private banker, who wished to stay anonymous, told chinadaily.com.cn after the roadshow.

He is among hundreds of institutional investors that were able to communicate face-to-face in New York with the management team of Alibaba, led by the company's founder Jack Ma and CFO Joseph Tsai.

According to the amended filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Alibaba will offer a total of 320 million American Depositary Shares with each price ranging between $60 and $66.

"The 30 times price-to-earnings pricing is relatively conservative, compared to Tencent and Facebook," said Cao Junbo, chief analyst of iResearch Consulting Group, adding that Alibaba is learning from the social network giant's failure and leaving room for a good debut.

Facebook stock struggled to stay above its IPO price on the initial trading day, forcing underwriters to buy back shares to support the price, according to Wall Street Journal.

Alibaba is expected to start trading on New York exchange on Sep 19 under the ticker "BABA".

Spokeswoman of Goldman Sachs, one of the underwriters for Alibaba, declined to comment on the amount of subscription so far.

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