News this week: According to various media reports, China’s largest e-commerce
company, Alibaba
Group, is planning to buy a stake in NASDAQ-listed Sina’s Weibo,
one of China’s most popular microblogging services.
Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, is reportedly valued
at around US$2 billion to US$3 billion, where Alibaba is looking to buy a
15%-20% stake. According to financial services provider Credit Suisse, the
valuation is lower than its internal valuation of US$4.4 billion, but higher
than the implied valuation of US$1.8 billion based on Sina’s closing share
price on 16th November. In the first nine months of 2012, Weibo
generated US$20 million in advertising revenue.
Alibaba and Sina both declined to comment on the deal.
Separately, Yahoo‘s
filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission earlier this month reported Alibaba Group’s financial figures
for the first nine months of the year. Alibaba Groups’s revenues were up 74% to
US$2.9 billion, while profit in the period was up more than 300% to US$730
million. Alibaba’s net attributable income in the quarter from April-June was
US$273 million, more than double year-on-year, while revenues rose 71% reaching
US$1.1 billion.
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