BIZCHINA / Ma Yun
Cash-rich Alibaba not listing in near future
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-03-11 19:04
China's Internet auctioneer flagship Alibaba Technology Co. Ltd. will
continue to focus on integrating the Yahoo China operation, Jack Ma,
chief executive officer of Alibaba.com, said Friday, ruling out plans for
new acquisition or stock listing in near future.
"To many people, putting his company on the stock market is a matter of
course; but I haven't thought about it because I'm not short of money,"
Ma told Xinhua when attending an investment promotion symposium here held
by east China's Hangzhou city.
"What's more, we have to digest for a while after taking such a chunk of
food," Ma referred to Alibaba's merger and acquisition of Yahoo Inc.'s
China-based web portal last August.
He said Alibaba has almost finished the reorganization of Yahoo China's
business by projecting all its resources to develop the on-line
Chinese-language search engine.
Only 6 percent of Yahoo China's technicians left the company after the
merger, far below the average level of 30 percent of brain drain
following a company's merger and acquisition, Ma said, promising
consumers a totally different Yahoo China one year after the acquisition.
As China's largest e-commerce website, Alibaba.com acquired Yahoo China
last August with a package of Yahoo China's assets includes Yahoo's
search technology, the Yahoo China website, its communication and
advertising business, as well as 3721.com, a Chinese language search
engine.
As part of the acquisition agreement, Alibaba also obtained 1 billion
U.S. dollars of investment from Yahoo as well the exclusive right of
using the Yahoo brand.
In return, Yahoo will take 40 percent of Alibaba's shares but have 35
percent of voting rights in the company.
"Yahoo China looks more like a company than before, in terms of its
website, the staff's attitudes or its structure," Ma described the
progress of readjustment of the company six months after the acquisition
deal.
In January, Alibaba announced to invest 30 million yuan (3.75 million
U.S. dollars) to invite three renowned Chinese film directors to shoot an
advertisement for the search engine business respectively.
"What we are doing is to design an on-line search engine for ordinary
people, not just the engineers," Ma said. "We are more focused and a
totally search engine technology will come to the Chinese market within
three to five years."
Alibaba's ambition highlighted the intense rivalry in China's market of
more than 100 million Internet users with major players, including search
giant Google Inc. and Chinese-language Baidu.com, competing for more
Internet users in China's vast market.
Ma, a former English teacher, is one of China's best-known Internet
entrepreneurs after his successful acquisition of Yahoo China last August.
Alibaba.com, based in Hangzhou city southwest of Shanghai, runs online
commerce sites that link foreign buyers with Chinese wholesalers. Its
popular consumer auction site Taobao.com competes with the Chinese arm of
eBay Inc.
(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)
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