Beijing - Chinese media Tuesday hailed the record-breaking stock market floatation of Chinese internet giant Alibaba as the start of a “Chinese era in the global internet.”
After selling 320 million shares on Friday, Alibaba on Monday sold an additional 48 million shares.
The sale brought the total value of the shares to 25.03 billion dollars (R279 billion), beating the previous biggest IPO, the Agricultural Bank of China which made 22.1 billion in 2010.
“This IPO (initial public offering), now the biggest ever, has become a landmark in the global history of internet development,” said a commentary in the Communist Party's mouthpiece, the People's Daily.
Alibaba's IPO “will provide global investors fresh opportunities to share fruits of China's economic growth,” state-run Xinhua news agency said in its analysis after the initial share flotation.
Underwriters sold 320 million shares to investors for an initial price of 68 dollars each when the company first floated on Friday.
The value of the shares rapidly surged to over 90 dollars.
The current price of Alibaba's shares would value the company at about 230 billion dollars, trailing only Google, Apple and Microsoft in size among US-traded technology companies. - Sapa-dpa