Alibaba launches USD10bn HK share placement to fund AI spending

SHANGHAI: China’s Alibaba on Sunday launched a HKD80-billion (USD10.2 billion) share placement to fund artificial intelligence-related development.

A deal by the Chinese e-commerce and cloud computing giant would mark the largest-ever primary follow-on offering by a Hong Kong-listed company.

It would rank as the world’s third-largest primary follow-on share sale this year after offerings from Alphabet and Intel.

The company said it intends to use 100 percent of the net proceeds from the placement to invest in its “full stack” AI capabilities, a category that includes chips, infrastructure and the development and deployment of AI models.

A term sheet reviewed by Reuters showed Alibaba planned to sell 710 million ordinary shares at HKD112.70 a share. That represented a 3.6 percent discount to its most recent closing price. In its announcement for the USD10.2 billion share placement, Alibaba did not reveal additional details on its investment plans by category of its planned AI-related investment.

It did not comment beyond its regulatory disclosure.

Last week, Alibaba reported its results for the April-to-June quarter, saying it had already spent nearly half of its three-year capex investment plan. It said its expected payback on AI-related investments was on track to fall to 2.5 years from 3 years, driven by surging demand.

Alibaba’s net profit for the quarter fell 75 percent from a year earlier as it ramped up its AI-related capital expenditures. “In order to be able to capture that future growth, we first need to make these capex investments to build out the necessary compute capacity,” CEO Eddie Wu said on an earnings call.

The company’s share offering has been met with strong demand from investors, including sovereign wealth funds, two people familiar with the deal told Reuters. They could not be named because the information was not public.