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Ma: IPO datae not yet set

Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has yet to finalize the exact date for its initial public offering in the United States, a top company official said on Thursday.

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Jack Ma, founder and chairman of Alibaba, denied that the group will list its shares in the US on Aug 8, which, in Chinese, superstitiously means "double fortune".

"I know that you guys talk about August 8. I also learned it on the Internet yesterday. But for sure, I don't know when and in which stock market we will launch the IPO," Ma said.

Ma made the remarks in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, on Thursday, after Alibaba signed an agreement with Evergrande Real Estate Group Co Ltd to buy 50 percent of shares of a soccer club owned by the Guangzhou-based property giant.

The e-commerce giant officially filed early in May to go public in the US in what could be the largest initial public offering ever.

According to Bloomberg, Alibaba may use "BABA" as its transaction code in the US stock market, but Ma refused to make further comments on details of the listing.

"Today we are talking about cooperation with Evergrande in the soccer field, which will strategically help boost business growth for both sides," Ma said.

The agreement with Evergrande marked the latest in a series of high-profile acquisitions by Alibaba as its seeks to expand its business portfolio ahead of the planned listing in the US, which could help raise about $15 billion.

Alibaba operates China's most popular online shopping platform, Taobao, which is estimated to hold more than 90 percent of the online market for consumer-to-consumer transactions.

The company also acquired a 10.35 percent stake in Singapore Post for $249 million as part of a strategic cooperation deal at the end of May.