Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has “returned home to Hong Kong”
Alibaba’s shares surged more than 6% today (26 November), when the organisation made its debut on the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX).
Alibaba Group’s Hong Kong-listed shares will be fully fungible with the Company’s American depository shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
At the launch event Alibaba Group Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Daniel Zhang said: “On this important milestone, I want to thank our customers first and foremost. My gratitude goes to all the Alibaba consumers who have supported us over the past 20 years, standing by us through our trial and error, as well as innovation for the future. Today, we are honoured to have 10 customers and partners from across our Alibaba digital economy representing four continents and eight countries strike the gong at our listing ceremony, marking the start of our trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.”
In 2014, when Alibaba was listed on the NYSE, a group of its digital economy and ecosystem partners was invited to ring the bell in the U.S., celebrating and sharing the important moment with the Company.
The 10 customers and partners onstage to kick off today’s trading are involved with Taobao, Alipay, Alibaba Cloud, Fliggy, Lazada, Tmall and AliExpress, with backgrounds ranging from users, merchants, internet celebrities and IoT experts to entrepreneurs.
“I want to especially thank Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. As a result of the continuous innovation and changes to the Hong Kong capital market, we are able to realise what we regrettably missed out on five years ago. Today, we realised what we said then: “When conditions allow, we will come back to Hong Kong,’” said Zhang.
“We are also grateful for being a part of this era, which is driven by digital innovation. Through the development of the internet and digital economy, we have been granted the opportunity to fulfill our founding mission, ‘to make it easy to do business anywhere.’ We want to use digital technology to help our customers and partners embrace the era of the digital economy,” he adds.
