Alibaba To Push Its IPO To September

International e-retail giant Alibaba has decided to push back its IPO to September, sometime after Labor Day.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the company did not see a reason to sprint toward an IPO set to coincide with the late summer market slow-down.

Analysts are widely predicting the stock sale could raise as much as $20 billion, and that the company’s total valuation will be within the $200 million mark.  It could easily become either the largest tech IPO in U.S. history—surpassing Facebook’s $16 billion, or Visa, the largest U.S. IPO in history.

Though beginning trading on Alibaba was initially tracked to and August 8 start date—8 is a lucky number in Alibaba’s home market (‘ba’ is how 8 is pronounced in Chinese, meaning Alibaba’s name has two ‘8’s’ in it)—to make that happen the global road show of presentations to investors and large institutional firms around the world would have needed to kick-off next week.

In light of the fact that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s review of the offering documents is not yet complete, revving up the presentation machine next week is unlikely.

Unwilling to potentially antagonize investors looking to go on vacation by pricing after the annual market cool-down after the second week of August through Labor Day and risk lower trading volumes, Alibaba instead has decided to move its offering.

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