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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.