Alibaba Group staged the largest initial public offering in history before Saudi Aramco’s 2019 listing.
Alibaba’s New York Stock Exchange IPO took place on 19 September 2014. The offering raised US$21.8 billion initially, and an overallotment option later increased the total to about US$25 billion. That made it the largest IPO ever at the time.
Alibaba is a Chinese technology company founded by Jack Ma in 1999. Its business includes online marketplaces such as Taobao and Tmall, along with cloud computing, logistics, digital media, and other services.
Saudi Aramco surpassed Alibaba’s record in 2019, raising about US$25.6 billion in its IPO and later increasing the amount through an overallotment. The two records are sometimes reported differently because sources may count the initial offering separately from the overallotment.