Alibaba’s Wall Street debut poised to break records

Alibaba made its long-awaited Wall Street debut Friday on the heels of a record stock offering that opens the door to global expansion for the Chinese online retail giant. Company founder Jack Ma was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as trading opened, while a group of Alibaba customers rang the opening bell. A trading price was not available in the early minutes after the opening, which is not uncommon for stock market debuts. By raising as much as $25 billion, Chinese online giant Alibaba is poised to break the record for the largest initial public offering in history.

Priced at $68 a share, Alibaba would raise $21.7 billion with the offering of 320 million shares. If underwriters exercise the option for 48 million additional shares, the amount would top $25 billion, breaking the 2010 record set by China’s AgBank.

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