Alibaba Group's 27-Member Partnership Can Expand Board After IPO

A group of 27 top executives and investors in Alibaba Group Holding, including executive chairman Jack Ma, can appoint two additional directors to the company's board once it goes public, Alibaba said in an 11 July US regulatory filing.

The move will expand the Chinese e-commerce giant's board to 11 members from nine post its planned New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) floatation, expected this year.

The 27-member group, dubbed the "Alibaba Partnership", has already planned to nominate four of Alibaba's nine directors prior to its initial public offering (IPO). Now, the group can designate six of 11 directors if they expand the board, giving it full control of the board.

Ma holds an 8.9% stake in Alibaba. Japanese telecoms major SoftBank and Yahoo own 34.3% and 22.5% of the company respectively.

In its updated prospectus filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Alibaba also boosted its estimated value to $130bn (£76bn, €95bn), from some $116m in earlier filings.

The figures were computed to affix employee reparation and do not necessarily represent the IPO price, Reuters reported.

NYSE IPO

Alibaba on 26 June said that it had picked the NYSE over rival Nasdaq for its US IPO.

Alibaba, which handles over 80% of all online commerce in China, the world's second largest economy, will list under the symbol "BABA".

Alibaba's stock sale could value the Chinese firm upwards of $200bn. The impending share sale could trump social networking giant Facebook's $15bn floatation in 2012.

Operations

Earlier in June, Alibaba disclosed details about the 27-person partnership that will run the firm post its US listing.

The firm, on 16 June, filed an amended prospectus for its planned stock sale, where it said its partnership structure will include 22 members of management such as chief executive Jonathan Zhaoxi Lu, chief operating officer Daniel Yong Zhang, executive vice chairman Joseph Tsai and co-founder Ma.

Alibaba also said SoftBank and Yahoo have agreed to vote their shares in favour of the so-called Alibaba Partnership's nominees.