Goldman Sachs' role puts Alibaba closer to IPO

Goldman Sachs Group Inc is the latest Wall Street titan to join a group of banks lending $8 billion to Chinese Internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, according to reports.

Alibaba, whose Tmall.com and eBay-like Taobao platforms dominate China's e-commerce market, has set a deadline of Friday for lenders to step forward, with the company is seeking funds for debt-refinancing and other purposes. Those likely include financing for a widely anticipated initial public offering of stock either this year or next.

The syndication deadline, however, is likely to be extended by about two weeks, so that banks have more time to process credit approvals, Bloomberg News cited a source saying on Wednesday.

Big banks are eager to underwrite an Alibaba IPO, from which they could reap tens of millions of dollars in fees.

Rapid growth and huge potential as the leading online retailer in the world's most populous country could make an Alibaba float the biggest tech industry IPO since Facebook Inc's in 2012. Alibaba could be valued at $50 billion to $100 billion and might launch an IPO as soon as this year's fourth quarter but more likely during the first half of 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported.

New York-based Goldman Sachs has pledged a $500 million loan as part of the so-called lending syndicate for the Chinese company, various reports said, citing anonymous sources.

Basis Point, published by Thomson Reuters, first reported Goldman's participation on Monday, saying Goldman will be the lead arranger and book-runner for the loan, which consists of three parts - $2.5 billion for three years; $4 billion for five years; and a $1.5 billion, three-year revolving credit line that isn't syndicated.

Alibaba has yet to select an underwriting team, but a financial industry source with direct knowledge of the matter told Basis Point that the company is likely to favor banks that have lent it money.

Other banks were invited to join the syndicate, which was established with nine lenders hired by Alibaba: Citigroup Inc, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Morgan Stanley, Australia & New Zealand Banking Group, Credit Suisse Group AG, DBS Bank Ltd, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings PLC and Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd.

Representatives of Goldman Sachs and Alibaba Group declined to comment on Wednesday.

Stock exchanges have also been competing for an IPO by Alibaba, but several reports cited sources as saying Hong Kong is likely to get the listing. The Journal, citing bankers who have had dealings with the company, reported on Wednesday that a possible dual listing in Hong Kong and the United States is possible

Alibaba Group is based in Hangzhou, in eastern China's Zhejiang province, and registered in the Cayman Islands.

A year ago this month, the parent company delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange its Alibaba.com unit, a leading business-to-business e-commerce platform in China. The move was seen by some Internet industry analysts as a sign of plans for a company wide IPO.

Last September, Alibaba bought back some of its shares from Yahoo Inc for $7.1 billion, reducing the US-based Internet company's stake to 23 percent from 40 percent. The deal also gave Alibaba the right to repurchase, by December 2015, additional shares from Yahoo at the price of its potential IPO, or let Yahoo sell those shares in the IPO, the Wall Street Journal cited people familiar with the deal as saying.

Bloomberg News, reported on May 2 that Alibaba would use $800 million to buy back its preferred shares from Yahoo, $4.8 billion to refinance debt and the remainder for corporate purposes.

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Alibaba will use the syndicated loan in part to refinance $2 billion in lending from State-owned China Development Bank, and a $2 billion loan from international banks that had been used for the Yahoo share repurchase to take Alibaba.com private.

China Investment Corp, the country's sovereign wealth fund, and state-backed Citic Capital, bought stakes in Alibaba Group last year.

Jack Ma (Ma Yun), who founded Alibaba in 1999 and stepped down as CEO last month, said in a May 4 speech at Stanford University that he doesn't care where or when an IPO is conducted, only that it helps sustain the company's growth and benefits shareholders. Ma, 49, who remains Alibaba's chairman, was replaced as CEO earlier this year by Jonathan Lu.

Alibaba's e-commerce operations, which enable sales of goods to consumers and businesses, also include the payment service AliPay. The company has been active in acquisitions, announcing in late April its $586 million purchase of an 18 percent stake in Sina Corp, owner of Weibo, China's hugely popular micro-blogging and social-networking site. It has also bought up smaller firms engaged in Internet-search software, group-buying deals and an online taxi-reservation service - part of what Ma says is a strategic shift from PCs to mobile devices as the primary platform for Alibaba's services.

Analysts have estimated that more than 1 trillion yuan ($160 billion) worth of goods were sold last year across Alibaba's e-commerce empire.

According to a US regulatory filing by shareholder Yahoo, Alibaba had net profit of $642.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2012, a jump of 171 percent from the same period a year earlier. Revenue was up 80 percent to $1.84 billion.