HONG KONG: Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is set to sell some $22 billion of shares on Thursday, capping a two-week road show that drew frenzied interest from investors worldwide and may be the world’s largest ever initial public offering (IPO).

The shares are expected to be priced after the markets close at 4pm Thursday and start trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday under the ticker “BABA.”

Investors, keen to buy into China’s rapid growth and evolving Internet sector, have been clamouring to get shares since top executives at Alibaba, including co-founder and executive chairman Jack Ma, kicked off the road show last week.

Alibaba, which handles more transactions than Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc combined, boosted the IPO price range to between $66 and $68 a share due to the strong demand.

ME banks buy most Goldman Sachs Sukuk

DUBAI: Middle Eastern banks bought the vast majority of a debut $500 million Sukuk issue by Goldman Sachs, a positive sign for other conventional banks hoping to tap the region’s liquidity by issuing Islamic debt, according to data from lead managers.

Goldman priced its five-year Sukuk on Tuesday at a profit rate of 2.844 per cent, drawing about $1.5 billion of investor orders, after road shows in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

It was only the second Sukuk issue from a conventional bank outside a predominantly Muslim country; HSBC issued $500m of Sukuk in 2011.

Middle East investors bought 87pc of the Goldman Sukuk, while 11pc went to Europe and 2pc to Asian investors, a document from lead arrangers showed.

Banks bought 77pc of the bonds, asset managers bought 22pc and private banks bought 1pc.

An initial attempt by Goldman to sell Sukuk three years ago, when it announced a $2bn issuance programme, ran into controversy after some analysts said it might violate Islamic bans on interest payments and monetary speculation.

News Corp criticises ‘cynical’ Google

BRUSSELS: News Corp Chief Executive Robert Thomson has urged European regulators to reconsider their settlement with Google Inc over its search practices, calling the Internet company an “egregious” aggregator and a “platform of piracy.”

In a letter last week to European Commissioner for Competition Joaqun Almunia, Thomson said Google was “willing to exploit its dominant market position to stifle competition” and that the vision of Google’s founders had been replaced by a “cynical management”. News Corp issued a statement on Tuesday regarding the letter.

Google has been the target of a European Commission investigation since November 2010, when more than a dozen complainants, including Microsoft Corp, accused the company of promoting its own services at their expense.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2014