The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
HANGZHOU, China — Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. plans a one-to-eight share split, as the e-commerce giant prepares for a stock sale that could be Hong Kong's largest since 2010.
China’s largest company is proposing to increase the number of ordinary shares eight-fold to 32 billion, it said in a statement. The proposal will be discussed and put to a vote at its annual general meeting in Hong Kong on July 15. If approved, the split should take place no later than July 2020.
Alibaba is said to have filed for a listing in Hong Kong last week via a confidential exchange application. That sale of stock, which could raise as much as $20 billion, replenishes the online retailer’s war-chest and helps it attract investors closer to home as tensions between China and the US escalate.
In the Hong Kong offering, the company will seek to preserve its governance system, where a partnership of top executives has rights including the ability to nominate a majority of board members, a person familiar with the matter has said. It’s possible also that the company may not need to seek a waiver, as the city’s listing rules allow some Chinese issuers who have already listed on an established international bourse to keep their existing structures in a secondary listing.
By Lulu Yilun Chen; editors: Peter Elstrom and Edwin Chan.
In 2020, like many companies, the $50 billion yoga apparel brand created a new department to improve internal diversity and inclusion, and to create a more equitable playing field for minorities. In interviews with BoF, 14 current and former employees said things only got worse.
For fashion’s private market investors, deal-making may provide less-than-ideal returns and raise questions about the long-term value creation opportunities across parts of the fashion industry, reports The State of Fashion 2024.
A blockbuster public listing should clear the way for other brands to try their luck. That, plus LVMH results and what else to watch for in the coming week.
L Catterton, the private-equity firm with close ties to LVMH and Bernard Arnault that’s preparing to take Birkenstock public, has become an investment giant in the consumer-goods space, with stakes in companies selling everything from fashion to pet food to tacos.