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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: A Horse With No Name who wrote (148790)5/28/2019 2:13:21 PM
From: Elroy Jetson2 Recommendations

Recommended By
dvdw©
elmatador

  Respond to of 217836
 
The companies that are the core of Alibaba’s Chinese operations – the main reason for the heated investor demand in the BABA ADR traded on the NYSE – are not even owned by the Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. traded as BABA, as China prohibits foreign ownership of Chinese assets.

BABA shares are an ADR owned and maintained by Citibank which charges a fee of 2 cents per month per share for operating the ADR.

Each BABA ADR is equivalent to one share of the VIE "Variable Interest Entity" owned by Citibank. Citibank is just one of a small number of shareholders of the VIE. Other owners include Jack Ma and I think it's safe to assume the older shareholders are the investment banks which helped take BABA public: Credit Suisse; Deutsche Bank; Goldman Sachs; JP Morgan Chase; and Morgan Stanley.

So what is the BABA V.I.E. in which Citibank has offered you BABA shares?

The BABA ADRs is part of the VIE which owns the assets of Alibaba outside of China and has a variety of unspecified contracts with Alibaba China.

If you own BABA shares, you own a piece of this mystery box of non-Chinese assets which are actually owned by Citibank. - ethicssage.com
.

Citibank could offer trading of their VIE shares in Hong Kong, but it appears far more likely that Jack Ma will sell shares in Hong Kong to raise more money for the same "Alibaba company which owns their non-Chinese assets", which would essentially be additional shares of the BABA type traded on the NYSE.

Alternately Jack Ma could obtain permission from China's government to trade an interest in the Chinese company Alibaba, which would be shares in a completely different company than BABA shares represent.

Many "shares in Chinese companies" are similar mystery boxes which in no way represent ownership of any business or assets in China. As Jay Chen says, the fact that they trade at any price at all merely indicates "the casino is open".

For disclosure purposes, I own no portion of any mystery box.




To: A Horse With No Name who wrote (148790)5/28/2019 7:17:48 PM
From: TobagoJack  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 217836
 
I think ...

- shareholders (irrespective of citizenship, residency, geographic location, and ethno-religion flavouring) must demand that all the 300+ team china companies make preparations to migrate, and fast, else must be ready to remove irresponsible management w/ heads in the sand. Salam protocol is on.

- should any companies fail to migrate by some as yet unclear date, am guessing that the officialdoms of teams China and America shall do pull then yank, and push then shove, respectively, cheered on by suspect MSM and facilitated by rule by making up rules, for the people, by the people, against other people

- the companies must consider what an application of exit tax would do to their treasury and shareholders, as companies are just legal persons, and team America is one of very few states with exit tax on its expats leaving for good

- shareholders are getting ripped as we ponder, as the share prices are going from upper left to the lower right, and as the insiders do what they learned from their team America Wall Street advisors, may well work to lower valuation across the juncture of there and here, delisting and listing

- new shareholders may have a chance, because they can better judge the management based on track record of old charts, and select wagers accordingly

- trading volumes might increase for those companies of merit and those not

- valuations might go higher given excess savings and lower base, thus momentum may work well

- as to <<what happens to (existing) shareholders>> ... not good for those unable to trade HK listed shares (via the usual brokers that be Schwab and such), okay for those w/ Interactive or full service brokers (but get ripped by full service)

- generally shareholders get hurt during times of confusion, and kerfuffle, when the lights go dark in the bar, and for those forced to sell at a gain, share the gain w/ officialdom, and for those at a loss, recognise the loss (since new share certificates may well be deemed as an exchange of unequal stuff, and this a sell and buy) - am not tax expert

- afterwards, after all said and done, a positive, as gives all of us more places to play



To: A Horse With No Name who wrote (148790)5/31/2019 7:59:46 AM
From: TobagoJack  Respond to of 217836
 
Folks seem still in the bag that Baba and the whole gang shall de-camp, by following a step by step process, each to own

Baba shall set up secondary listing somewhere not-5-eyes, then do a rearguard action and de-camp

Secondary listing is a step to a goal, and not the goal itself

ft.com

Alibaba listing offers Hong Kong a shot at the one that got awaySecondary placement by Chinese ecommerce giant promises to drive business back to HKEX
14 hours ago


Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing revised its rules last year to allow companies to issue shares with different voting rights © BloombergBack in 2013, as Alibaba grew increasingly frustrated with the listing rules of Hong Kong — the company’s first choice to host an initial public offering — its vice-chairman Joe Tsai issued a warning. “The question Hong Kong must address is whether it is ready to look forward as the rest of the world passes it by,” he wrote in a blog post.

But Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) refused to budge, insisting that Alibaba’s dual-class share structure put ordinary investors at a disadvantage. And so the semi-autonomous Chinese territory missed out on the biggest IPO in history.

Now the Chinese ecommerce company, which raised $25bn with a 2014 listing in New York, is re-evaluating the market it left behind, planning a secondary listing in Hong Kong that could raise as much as $20bn.

The move gives HKEX, which revised its rules last year, a shot at the one that got away and a better chance of retaining its crown as the world’s top destination for IPOs. Analysts say Alibaba’s return could drive business back to Hong Kong as other Chinese tech companies listed abroad follow suit.

But questions remain over Hong Kong’s liquidity and after-market performance — and whether the additional listing is chiefly a political manoeuvre by Alibaba to curry favour with Beijing, as it grapples with Washington over tech and trade.


The groundwork for Alibaba’s homecoming was laid last year when HKEX changed its rules to allow companies to issue shares with different voting rights, rather than the traditional “one share, one vote” structure. The issuing of various voting rights tends to appeal to technology companies and family-run businesses, where the founders want to retain greater control.

Stephen Chan, a partner at law firm Dechert, said the placement from Alibaba — founded 20 years ago by Jack Ma, now China’s richest man — would represent “a major boost for Hong Kong in maintaining its top spot at the global IPO market by amount of funds raised”. He said the move amounted to an endorsement by Alibaba of the listing reforms, and would increase the city’s appeal as a venue for landmark listings.

A $20bn share placement by Alibaba would be the fourth-largest in Hong Kong’s history and rank the company alongside the likes of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the biggest bank in China, and insurer AIA, according to Dealogic data. The next-largest tech listing in Hong Kong, by China Tower, raised just $7.5bn last year.

Yet a secondary placement by the company does not mean IPO candidates will be able to look past Hong Kong’s stringent and often expensive vetting when deciding where to debut. One lawyer who has advised on numerous listings in Hong Kong estimated the cost of preparing to list can reach HK$40m ($5m) before a company even submits its application.

“It’s substantially easier and cheaper to list in the United States than it is to list in Hong Kong,” said a Hong Kong-based banker, who added that the depth of the market was also a consideration.

The value of shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange so far this year is 2.5 times that seen on Hong Kong’s main board, according to Financial Times calculations based on Bloomberg data.

There is another compelling reason to opt for the US over Hong Kong: after-market performance.

Take Xiaomi and Meituan Dianping, two large Chinese tech companies that have completed dual-class listings in Hong Kong under the new regime. Both have fallen below their listing prices and failed to keep pace with the benchmark Hang Seng index.


Alibaba’s motive for the secondary listing is also pertinent for those who follow the company closely.

One Hong Kong-based tech banker said that while there was no compulsion to sell shares in Hong Kong — given Alibaba’s prodigious cash flow and lightly levered balance sheet — it could potentially boost the group’s valuation by building a loyal base of local investors.

Another banker said US-Sino tensions made this a particularly shrewd time for Alibaba to tap Hong Kong, if not onshore bourses in Shanghai and Shenzhen.


Regardless of whether the move is primarily a response to regulatory change or a political sop by Alibaba, Chinese tech companies are likely to stay on the sidelines for now.

“Other US-listed Chinese companies will be watching to see how it pans out before we see a wave of them also considering it,” said Pruksa Iamthongthong, an investment manager for the Asian equities team at Aberdeen Standard Investments.

She added that while Shanghai was establishing an onshore tech board scheduled to begin trading within a few months, it was unlikely to capture many listings by China’s bigger, more established tech companies.

“It depends if you want access to domestic capital or international,” said Ms Iamthongthong. “If you want to come back closer to home but still have foreign capital access, Hong Kong is probably the best.”