Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd filed papers on Tuesday for an initial public offering, according to the US Security and Exchange Commission.
The proposed offering price is $1 billion in the filing, but that amount is considered to be a place holder and could change.
Alibaba is expected to raise at least 10 times that amount, according to multiple media reports, which could make the company one of the biggest public offerings ever.
Alibaba neither said how many shares it would offer nor when it would debut on the stock exchange.
Japanese telecommunications and internet company Softbank will continue to own more than 30 per cent of shares after the completion of the offering, according to the filing.
US internet pioneer Yahoo, which owns about 24 per cent of Alibaba, could reap a multi-billion dollar premium from the initial public offering, Bloomberg reported.
Alibaba reported net income of $1.4 billion in 2013, a 110-per-cent increase from the previous year, according to Yahoo’s first quarterly results statement.
Alibaba’s business is concentrated on online shopping and online payments. The company’s website says it operates “leading online and mobile marketplaces in consumer and business-to-business commerce, as well as cloud computing and other services.”
Marketwatch.com compares the Chinese internet company to “eBay, PayPal and Amazon rolled into one.” The company was founded in 1999 by a group of 18 led by Jack Ma, a former English teacher from Hangzhou, China.