Alibaba is raising £7.5bn through a major share sale as it doubles down on its AI ambitions.
The retail and tech group is issuing 710m new shares in Hong Kong at around £10.54 each, with the deal expected to raise roughly £7.5bn.
Alibaba said the proceeds would be used to develop its “full stack” AI capabilities, including chips, computing infrastructure and artificial intelligence models.
The deal represents the largest-ever primary follow-on offering by a Hong Kong-listed company and the third-largest globally this year, behind fundraisings from Alphabet and Intel.
However, Alibaba shares fell almost 10 per cent in Hong Kong trading on Monday morning after the new stock was priced at an 8.4 per cent discount to Friday’s closing price.
Despite the market reaction, the fundraising attracted strong investor interest, with orders reaching around £20.5bn. Sovereign wealth funds and long-term investors accounted for a significant proportion of demand.
The move comes just days after it was reported that Alibaba’s quarterly profits had plunged 75 per cent as spending on AI infrastructure soared.
Its capital expenditure jumped 75 per cent to around £7.4bn during its latest quarter, while revenue rose nine per cent to £29.3bn.
Its AI cloud and computing services division was a standout performer, with sales climbing 45 per cent to £5.3bn.
Alibaba has committed around £41.4bn to AI and cloud infrastructure over three years and has already deployed close to half of that planned investment.
Chief executive Eddie Wu said last week that the company’s “full-stack AI strategy” had put Alibaba in a strong position to capitalise on rapidly growing demand for AI and computing capacity.
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter