Alibaba Group’s 2014 stock-market listing was the largest IPO before Saudi Aramco’s 2019 offering.
Alibaba Group raised US$21.8 billion in its September 2014 initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. An over-allotment option later increased the total to about US$25 billion, making it the largest IPO in history at that time. The company’s shares trade under the symbol BABA.
Alibaba was founded by Jack Ma and associates in Hangzhou in 1999. It developed from an online business-to-business marketplace into a broad technology group associated with retail marketplaces, cloud computing, logistics, digital media, and payments-related services. Its consumer platforms include Taobao and Tmall.
The record was later surpassed by Saudi Aramco’s 2019 offering. IPO size measures the money raised by selling shares to the public, while market capitalization measures the value of all outstanding shares. Those figures are related but not identical, so an IPO record does not automatically mean the issuer was the world’s most valuable company.