Aug 24 (Reuters) – Alibaba shares fell 8% in early Hong Kong trade on Monday after the tech company finalised a HK$80 billion ($10.21 billion) share placement at HK$112.70 apiece, in a deal aimed at funding artificial intelligence-related development.
The Chinese e-commerce and cloud computing company priced 710 million new shares at an 8.4% discount to the last close of its Hong Kong-listed stock.
The deal is the largest-ever primary follow-on offering by a Hong Kong-listed company and the third-largest globally this year after offerings by Alphabet and Intel.
Alibaba intends to use proceeds to fund AI development, including the expansion of related infrastructure.
The share placement comes a week after Alibaba reported quarterly earnings in which it said it had already spent nearly half of its three-year capital expenditure plan. It brought forward its projected payback on AI investment to two and a half years from three due to surging demand for AI services.
Its quarterly net profit fell 75% from a year earlier due primarily to AI-related spending.
Last week, digital technology and AI division Alibaba Cloud launched its third data centre in South Korea, bringing its network to 104 availability zones across 30 regions. The move was a part of Alibaba’s AI infrastructure pledge, announced in October, to invest 380 billion yuan ($56.54 billion) over three years.
($1 = 7.8391 Hong Kong dollars)
($1 = 6.7210 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Sherin Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher Cushing)