A logo of Alibaba Group is seen during Alibaba Group’s 11.11 Singles’ Day global shopping festival at the company’s headquarters in Hangzhou, China, November 11, 2019.
Aly Song | Reuters
Alibaba will close its order books to institutional investors early for its upcoming secondary listing in Hong Kong, a sign that demand for shares is strong, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told CNBC.
The e-commerce giant will close its book at 12 p.m. ET on Tuesday, earlier than initially planned, the sources, who wished to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak publicly, said. One of the sources who spoke to CNBC said the book will close half a day earlier than originally scheduled.
An Alibaba spokesperson declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.
“The book is well-covered,” one source said. “The international offering received strong feedback.”
Alibaba got the greenlight from Hong Kong regulators for the secondary listing last week, CNBC previously reported.
News of Alibaba’s plans to close the books early was first reported by Reuters.
The Chinese e-commerce giant will issue 500 million new ordinary shares plus 75 million “greenshoe” options. These give the underwriting banks the ability to sell more shares than the original amount set.
Of those 500 million shares, 12.5 million will be reserved for retail investors. Alibaba has the option to increase the portion available for retail investors to 50 million shares or 10% of the total offering.
The company previously said those retail shares will be priced at no more than 188 Hong Kong dollars (about $24.01). However, the remaining shares for institution investors, could be priced higher than that.
At 188 Hong Kong dollars a share, the total amount raised will be around $13.8 billion if the greenshoe option is exercised.
Alibaba will set the final offer price by Nov. 20 Hong Kong time. Shares of Alibaba will begin trading on Nov. 26.
