Alibaba Group’s 2014 initial public offering made it one of the world’s most valuable publicly traded companies.
Alibaba listed its American depositary shares on the New York Stock Exchange in September 2014. The offering raised about $25 billion, making it the largest initial public offering in history at the time. Strong investor demand reflected Alibaba’s dominant position in Chinese online commerce.
The group was founded by Jack Ma in 1999 as an internet business serving companies. It later developed marketplaces including Taobao and Tmall, while expanding into cloud computing, logistics, digital payments through affiliated businesses, and entertainment.
Alibaba’s market capitalization has changed substantially since the listing because of share-price movements, Chinese regulatory developments, competition, and changing economic conditions. The company is not the same entity as Ant Group, the financial-technology company that grew out of Alibaba’s payments operations, although the businesses have a close historical relationship.