Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Luv Alibaba, not so much Yahoo

Alibaba, Alibaba, Alibaba. That name has tantalized and tormented me for the past several months. Great company, huge growth, superb location (China and expanding). But there's no way for the common man (me) to get in the coming IPO on the Hang Seng. So what to do?

Rick Aristotle Munarriz suggests the back door: Yahoo. Yes, Yahoo, which owns 44% of Alibaba not including the 10% slice of Alibaba's IPO.

Alibaba and the IPO Thieves

Much as I love Alibaba, I can't stand Yahoo ($28.36, down 0.03% today) and its bloated (lack of) maneuvering in the U.S. My visualization of Yahoo is Jabba the Hut. Maybe not as slimy and smelly, but really, the blobby guy needs a good 15 minutes to make a 180-degree turn.

And yet, as Munarriz writes, Yahoo has its clutches on Yahoo Japan (the clear winner there), Alibaba and even Gmarket, a Korean stock that I love (but don't own). So Yahoo, with its Softbank connections perhaps, is a champion overseas and a chump domestically. Hmmm... maybe it's worth a closer look, but I've already looked at Yahoo's numbers. Then again, those numbers don't include the huge IPO proceeds that Alibaba is about to rake in. Munarriz forecasts a possible market cap greater than Baidu's.

Maybe the ultimate move by a swift Alibaba would be to IPO in the states. Alibaba, Alibaba, Alibaba. Tempt me no more.

No comments: