Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. BABA, +0.92% said late Thursday that it had priced its $8 billion debt offering at yields ranging from 1.625% to 4.5%. The securities sale was oversubscribed by a large margin, according to a Wall Street Journal report, which put the total orders as high as $55 billion.
Of the offer, $300 million was sold as floating-rate notes due 2017, $1 billion due in 2017 was priced at 1.625%, $2.25 billion due in 2019 was priced at 2.5%, $1.5 billion due in 2021 was priced at 3.125%, $2.25 billion due in 2024 was priced at 3.6%, and $700 million due in 2034 was priced 4.5%. Alibaba's 10-year, 3.6% tranche compares to a 2.303% yield Thursday for the benchmark U.S.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. BABA, +3.20% Chairman Jack Ma said he wants Alipay to go public in China. He made the comments right before the e-commerce giant announced that sales through its website on Nov. 11 beat last year’s record by nearly 60%.
The Alibaba e-shopping website Tmall saw sales total 57.1 billion yuan ($9.3 billion) on Nov. 11, compared with last year’s record of 36.2 billion yuan.
Alipay used to be an asset of Alibaba’s, then was spun off in 2010 despite the objection of foreign shareholders Yahoo Inc. YHOO, +3.16% and Softbank Corp. 9984, +2.88% SFTBF, +1.76% In 2011, the three companies reached an agreement that said Yahoo and Softbank will get a one-off cash payment equaling 37.5% of the capital Alipay raises when it lists. The payment cannot exceed $6 billion or be less than $2 billion.