Timeline

Purchases by Alibaba and its founders this year

Feb 10

Alibaba offers to buy the remaining shares of AutoNavi Holdings Ltd, a digital mapping company listed in the US, after it bought a 28 percent stake in the company for $294 million last May.

March 12

Alibaba agrees to pay HK$6.24 billion ($804 million) for a 60 percent stake in the Hong Kong-listed China Vision Media Group Ltd, which has a rich business portfolio, including print media, television and films, and mobile games.

March 20

Alibaba invests $215 million in the California-based mobile chat application Tango.

March 31

Alibaba agrees to invest HK$5.37 billion ($692.2 million) in the Hong Kong-listed department store operator Intime Retail (Group) Co Ltd. The overall capital injection will give Alibaba an equity stake in Intimae of about 9.9 percent and the retailer's convertible bonds worth HK$3.71 billion. Once the bonds are converted into shares in three years, Alibaba will have no less than 25 percent of Intime's equity.

April 3

Zhejiang Finance Credit Network Technology Co, 99 percent owned by Alibaba's founder Jack Ma, agrees to pay 3.3 billion yuan ($531.78 million) to take controlling stake in financial software firm Hudson Technologies Inc.

April 8

An investment firm controlled by Alibaba founders agrees to buy a 20 percent stake in digital-television company Wasu Media Holding Co for about 6.54 billion yuan ($1.06 billion).

Milestones in Alibaba's growth

2000

SoftBank Corp invests $20 million. The company will continue to own more than 30 percent of Alibaba after the initial public offering in the US.

August 2005

Yahoo signs strategic partnership with Alibaba, agreeing to invest about $1 billion for a 40 percent stake. The investment is considered crucial for Alibaba's growth.

May 2012

Alibaba buys back half of Yahoo's 40 percent stake in the company for $7.1 billion. Yahoo is poised to pare 40 percent of its remaining Alibaba stake in the coming IPO.

June 2012

Alibaba delists its Alibaba.com (1688.com), a business-to-business site focused on exports, from the Hong Kong main board. Alibaba, which held 73.12 percent of the site, buys back the remaining 26.88 percent shares from shareholders at HK$13.50 each, involving as much as HK$19.6 billion.

This compares with HK$13 billion Alibaba.com raised through an initial public offering in 2007.

October 2012-September 2013

Alibaba holds talks with the Hong Kong exchange's listing panel on establishing a system under which Jack Ma and other top executives can nominate most of the company's board and submit the proposed directors' slate to shareholders for a vote. Hong Kong does not allow the dual-class structure favored by Facebook Inc, Google Inc and other US-listed technology companies. As a result of the disagreement, Alibaba calls off its IPO plan in Hong Kong.

March 16, 2014

Alibaba confirms it will make an initial public offering in the US. The decision will "make (Alibaba) a more global company and enhance the company's transparency, as well as allow the company to continue to pursue our long-term vision and ideals", a company statement says.

May 7

Alibaba files for IPO in the US.

(China Daily European Weekly 05/16/2014 page15)